Journal articles on the topic 'Talent scouts in fiction'

Howe et al. have mistaken gene x environment correlations for environmental main effects. Thus, they believe that training would develop the same level of performance in anyone, when it would not. The heritability of talents indicates their dependence on variation in physiological (including neurological) capacities. Talents may be difficult to predict from early cues because tests are poorly designed, or because the skill requirements change at more advanced levels of performance. One twin study of training effects demonstrated greater heritability of physical skill after than before training. In summary, talents are real.

The purpose of this study was to examine “intangible” characteristics that scouts consider when evaluating draft-eligible prospects for the Western Hockey League. Sixteen scouts participated in semistructured interviews that were subjected to an inductive thematic analysis and then organized around predetermined categories ofwhyintangibles were important,whatintangibles were valued, andhowscouts evaluated these intangibles. Intangibles helped scouts establish players’ fit with the organizational culture of teams and influenced scouts’ draft-list ranking of players. The key intangibles scouts sought were labeled compete, passion, character, and leadership/team player. Scouts noted red flags (i.e., selfish on-ice behaviors, bad body language, and poor parental behavior) that led them to question players’ suitability for their respective organizations. Finally, scouts used an investigative process to identify and evaluate these intangibles through direct observation; interviews with players, coaches, and trainers; and assessments of players’ social media activities. Implications for sport psychology consultants are discussed.

Although talent selection in professional soccer mainly relies on the subjective judgment of scouts and coaches, little is known to date about top-level soccer coaches’ conceptions of talent. Drawing on a constructivist approach, this mixed method study intends to give an in-depth insight into coaches’ subjective talent criteria and to investigate the validity and reliability of their player assessments based on these criteria. Five national youth soccer coaches were examined using semistructured inductive interviews and the repertory grid technique. The results reveal experienced soccer coaches’ subjective talent criteria and indicate the multidimensional nature of their concepts of talent. There is a high correlation (−.57 ≤ rs ≤ −.81) between the coaches’ assessment of their players based on their own talent criteria and their previous evaluation of these players’ overall potential, indicating criterion validity. Repeated evaluations of the players according to a coach’s talent criteria display an adequate test–retest reliability over a period of 10 weeks.

AbstractThis paper investigates the diffusion of digital technologies within the football talent scouting process. A qualitative exploration based on open discussions and unstructured interviews with professionals involved in the football system (coaches, scouts, players’ agents, etc.) provides insights about how new technologies are used for recruiting athletes. The findings, which are mainly in the context of Italian football, indicate a cultural and generational gap in the use of new digital tools that creates a mismatch between young promising athletes (demand side) and “senior” team professionals (supply side).

Our target article on ‘Innate talent’ had two objectives, first to acknowledge the 20th anniversary of the seminal contribution by Howe, Davidson and Sloboda (1998) and second, to update this information as it relates to talent in the domain of sport. Many thanks to all the authors that took the time to provide commentaries on our review. Broadly, our target paper focused on 1) whether the concept of innate talent was reasonable and scientifically sound and 2) whether the concept of innate talent had any utility to those working at the coalface of sport science (e.g., coaches, scouts, etc.). All of the commentaries were complimentary to our review, which suggested continued interest in this area (although this was noted as surprising by Hambrick and Burgoyne). We have tried to respond to all of the interesting points raised by the commentaries, but this was not always possible. That said, we grouped our responses under general themes below. Our impression, based on the commentaries, is that innate talent is not a contested concept; in that there appears to be agreement (for the most part) that, ‘this thing exists’. Rather, the concept of innate talent is contestable (Gallie, 1956); that is, there is debate about exactly what it is, the degree of its influence, and how useful the concept of innate talent is.

The theory of deliberate practice postulates that experts are always made, not born. This theory translated to the youth-sport domain means that if athletes want to be high-level performers, they need to deliberately engage in practice during the specialization years, spending time wisely and always focusing on tasks that challenge current performance. Sport organizations in several countries around the world created specialized training centers where selected young talents practice under the supervision of experienced coaches in order to become professional athletes and integrate onto youth national teams. Early specialization and accurate observation by expert coaches or scouts remain the only tools to find a potential excellent athlete among a great number of participants. In the current study, the authors present 2 of the problems raised by talent search and the risks of such a search. Growth and maturation are important concepts to better understand the identification, selection, and development processes of young athletes. However, the literature suggests that sport-promoting strategies are being maintained despite the increased demands in the anthropometric characteristics of professional players and demands of actual professional soccer competitions. On the other hand, identifying biological variables that can predict performance is almost impossible.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the use of sophisticated talent selection processes such as gamification and training and development interventions designed to ensure that candidates can successfully navigate the talent assessment process. Gamification is the application of game elements to non-game activities through the adoption of gaming tools, and little is known about how candidates (“talent”) struggle to learn about the structural mechanics of gamification as they engage with the hidden rules of talent selection, such as goals, rules, “levelling up”, feedback and engagement in competitive – collaborative activities. The term “talent development gamification” is coined and used as an analytical tool to consider how young talent are supported by development interventions in their inter-subjectivity as they learn how to survive and win in talent selection games. Design/methodology/approach Studying hidden dynamics in development processes inherent in gamified talent selection is challenging, so a cult work of fiction, “Ender’s Game”, is examined to address the questions: “How do candidates in talent selection programmes learn to make sense of the structural mechanics of gamification”, “How does this make the hidden rules of talent selection explicit to them?” and “What does this mean for talent development?” Findings Talent development in selection gamification processes is illustrated through nuanced theoretical accounts of how a multiplicity of shifting and competing developmental learning opportunities are played out as a form of “double-consciousness” by potential organizational talent for them to “win the selection game”. Research limitations/implications Using novels as an aid to understanding management and the organization of work is ontologically and epistemologically problematic. But analysing novels which are “good reads” also has educational value and can produce new knowledge from its analysis. In exploring how “Characters are made to live dangerously, to face predicaments that, as readers, we experience as vicarious pleasure. We imagine, for example, how a particular character may react or, more importantly, what we would do in similar circumstances” (Knights and Willmott, 1999, p. 5). This future-oriented fictional narrative is both illustrative and provides an analogy to illuminate current organisational development challenges. Originality/value The term “talent development gamification in selection processes” is coined to allow analysis and provide lessons for talent development practice in a little studied area. Our case study analysis identifies a number of areas for consideration by talent management/talent development specialists involved in developing talent assessment centres incorporating gamification. These include the importance of understanding and taking account of rites of passage through the assessment centre, in particular the role of liminal space, what talent development interventions might be of benefit and the necessity of appreciating and managing talent in developing the skill of double consciousness in game simulations.

Basketball is one of the most popular team sports in the world. A wide variety of athletic skills can be valuable indicators of a talented player. Testing these skills help trainers and scouts to make the best decisions during both youth and adult player selection of different competitive levels and field positions. However, scientific data regarding the association between field tests results and match statistics is sparse. We conducted a systematic review to logically summarize the physical field tests of athletic abilities and anthropometric measures used in basketball in different player positions at different levels, and to determine whether test results may correlate with match statistics. A comprehensive electronic literature search was performed via three electronic databases (PubMed, GoogleScholar, SportDiscus). The CASP checklist was used for checking the quality of reporting for all included articles. Based on 39 studies, it could be supported that the agility, speed and jumping test values seem to be crucial measures for basketball players. Anthropometry appeared to be the strongest discriminative factor between basketball positions, therefore, these values need to be significantly considered during selection. Moreover, the maturity status is also an important influencing factor for U-18 teams. In general, we found that successful players can be identified by their nonplanned agility and reactive power, considering that these factors affect match outcomes the most at the same competitive level.

Background: the machine learning (ML) techniques have been implemented in numerous applications, including health-care, security, entertainment, and sports. In this article, we present how the ML can be used for building a professional football team and planning player transfers. Methods: in this research, we defined numerous parameters for player assessment, and three definitions of a successful transfer. We used the Random Forest, Naive Bayes, and AdaBoost algorithms in order to predict the player transfer success. We used realistic, publicly available data in order to train and test the classifiers. Results: in the article, we present numerous experiments; they differ in the weights of parameters, the successful transfer definitions, and other factors. We report promising results (accuracy = 0.82, precision = 0.84, recall = 0.82, and F1-score = 0.83). Conclusion: the presented research proves that machine learning can be helpful in professional football team building. The proposed algorithm will be developed in the future and it may be implemented as a professional tool for football talent scouts.

Background: the machine learning (ML) techniques have been implemented in numerous applications, including health-care, security, entertainment, and sports. In this article, we present how the ML can be used for building a professional football team and planning player transfers. Methods: in this research, we defined numerous parameters for player assessment, and three definitions of a successful transfer. We used the Random Forest, Naive Bayes, and AdaBoost algorithms in order to predict the player transfer success. We used realistic, publicly available data in order to train and test the classifiers. Results: in the article, we present numerous experiments; they differ in the weights of parameters, the successful transfer definitions, and other factors. We report promising results (accuracy = 0.82, precision = 0.84, recall = 0.82, and F1-score = 0.83). Conclusion: the presented research proves that machine learning can be helpful in professional football team building. The proposed algorithm will be developed in the future and it may be implemented as a professional tool for football talent scouts.

From Henry Jenkins onwards, fan fiction study has walked pass almost 30 years and has covered a relatively large field including feminism, queer theory and mass culture, but many scholars still seem to miss the point that fan fiction is firstly a literary text and thus leave its literariness unexamined. In fact, with a high intertextuality and a “poacher” nature, fan fiction can serve as an ideal text to narratology study. This paper, through conducting a case study of The Lord of the Rings’ alternative universe fan fiction For Every Evil, is attempting to unfold fan authors’ literary talent in constructing functional character in the text and use it as a way to deliver personal interpretation to the canon. By applying characters’ known behavior as a method to resolve instability in fan fiction narrative and complete its narrative progress, authors who write alternative universe fan fiction show that this kind of “amateur” writing is worth a closer literary review. It is hoped that through the analysis, the literary merit of fan community can be better recognized, and fan fiction can be treated more as a genre rather than a cultural phenomenon in the future.

This contribution demonstrates how Burnett adopts several devices typical of detective fiction, namely clues, secondary secrets, interrogations, Gothic elements and the investigating outsider in a closed (and reclusive) society, in The Secret Garden in order to introduce tension and the motif of a riddle to solve her masterpiece. She also for the first time uses character qualities to develop Mary into a character with a talent to rely on her own observations and draw the correct conclusions. Thus she becomes the prototype of the girl sleuth who will become important in later detective fiction for children. This so far neglected aspect provides new insight into both the novel's plot structure and its main character's special qualities.

Extracurricular compulsory curriculum became Scout at the elementary and secondary education as a pillar of character education in the nation. Unlike other extracurricular activities students select appropriate talent and interestin making this ektrakurikuler impressed forced. Descriptive method quantitative research aims to find out and analyze the relationship of the extracurricular activities of the Scout with the level of religious students. Research results based on the data analysis has been done on the relationship between Extracurricular Activities with Scout level of Religiosity in students who demonstrate 0575 (r count), while the value of sig 2 tailednya value 0.000 < 0.01. This means the Ha received his and Ho is rejected. So the hypothesis which says there is a significant relationship between extracurricular activities with Scout level of religiosity is right, and also in correlation with test use Product Moment shown with * marked * in the table correlation between extracurricular activities with Scout level of religiosity which means it shows the value of positive correlation. That is, the better the student in carrying out activities through extracurricular activities the Scouts then the higher levels of religiosity in students. School social system in shaping the character of the religious students through extracurricular Scouts can go well because the fourth social system functions (adaptation, goal attainment, integration, and latency) can walk properly and mutual related.Keywords: Extracurricular Scouts, Religiosity, Students, Social Systems.ABSTRAKEkstrakurikuler Pramuka menjadi kurikulum wajib pada pendidikan dasar dan menengah sebagai pilar pendidikan karakter bangsa. Tidak seperti ekstrakurikuler lainnya yang siswa pilih sesuai bakat dan minatnya membuat ektrakurikuler ini terkesan dipaksakan. Penelitian kuantitatif dengan metode deskriptif ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dan menganalisis hubungan kegiatan ekstrakurikuler Pramuka dengan tingkat religius siswa. Hasil penelitian berdasarkan data analisis yang telah dilakukan mengenai hubungan antara Aktivitas Ekstrakurikuler Pramuka dengan tingkat Religiusitas Siswa yang menunjukkan 0.575 (r hitung), sedangkan nilai sig 2 tailednya bernilai 0,000 < 0,01. Ini berarti Ha diterima dan Ho nya ditolak. Sehingga hipotesis yang mengatakan terdapat hubungan yang signifikan antara aktivitas ekstrakurikuler pramuka dengan tingkat religiusitas adalah benar, dan juga dalam uji korelasi dengan menggunakan Product Moment ditunjukkan dengan tanda ** dalam tabel korelasi antara aktivitas ekstrakurikuler pramuka dengan tingkat religiusitas yang berarti menunjukkan nilai korelasi positif. Artinya, semakin baik siswa dalam melaksanakan aktivitas melalui kegiatan ekstrakurikuler pramuka maka semakin tinggi tingkat religiusitas siswa. Sistem sosial Sekolah dalam membentuk karakter religius siswa melalui ekstrakurikuler Pramuka bisa berjalan dengan baik karena keempat fungsi sistem sosialnya (adaptasi, goal attainment, integrasi, dan latensi) bisa berjalan sebagaimana mestinya dan saling terkait.Kata Kunci: Ekstrakurikuler Pramuka, Religiusitas, Siswa, Sistem Sosial.

This study aimed to evaluate the test–retest reliability of soccer skill tests belonging to the F-MARC test battery. To avoid bias during talent identification and development, coaches and scouts should be using reliable tests for assessing soccer-specific skills in young male players. Fifty-two U-14 outfield male soccer players performed F-MARC soccer skill tests on two occasions, separated by 7 days. After familiarization, we administered two trial sessions of five skill tests: speed dribbling, juggling, shooting, passing, and heading. We assessed absolute reliability by expressing the standard error of measurement as a coefficient of variation with 95% limits of agreement, and we assessed relative reliability with the intraclass correlation coefficient and with Pearson’s correlation ( r). The results demonstrated satisfactory relative and absolute reliability for speed dribbling, right foot juggling, short passing, shooting a dead ball right, shooting from a pass, heading in front, and heading right. However, reliability values for left foot juggling, chest-head-foot juggling, head-left-foot-right foot-chest-head juggling, long pass, and shooting a dead ball left tests were not strong enough to suggest their usage by coaches in training or sport scientists in research.

Widely acclaimed as one of the best living Canadian authors, Tim Bowling has cultivated several literary genres with great talent and verbal craftsmanship. He has published twelve poetry collections to date, two works of creative non-fiction, and five novels, including Downriver Drift (2000), The Paperboy’s Winter (2003), The Bone Sharps (2007), The Tinsmith (2012) and The Heavy Bear (2017). This article explores the epistemological power of Bowling’s fiction as a mode of knowing the self and the nonhuman environment. More specifically, bearing in mind fundamental ecocritical tenets, it analyses how his two earliest novels, Downriver Drift and The Paperboy’s Winter, evoke notions of dwelling and a compelling sense of place, as the natural environment in them is much more than mere backdrop to the narratives unfolding in their respective plots. Written in elegantly wrought language rich in poetic resonance, Bowling’s novels remind their readership that fiction is a powerful tool to investigate the human condition and our surrounding world, where the human and the nonhuman coexist on democratic terms.

Abstract Kenneth W. Warren’s What Was African American Literature? (2011) compelled literary historians to question deeply held assumptions about periodization and racial authorship. While critics have taken issue with Warren aligning African American literature with Jim Crow segregation, none has examined his account of what came after this conjuncture: namely, the market’s wholesale cooptation of Black writing. By following the career of African American popular novelist Omar Tyree, this essay shows how corporate publishers in the 1990s and 2000s redefined African American literature as a sales category, one that combined a steady stream of recognized authors with a mad dash for amateur talent. Tyree had been part of the first wave of self-published authors to be picked up by major New York houses. However, as soon as he was made to conform to the industry’s demands, Tyree was eclipsed by Black women writers who developed the hard-boiled romance genre known as urban fiction. As Tyree saw his literary fortunes fade, corporate publishing became increasingly reliant on Black book entrepreneurs to sustain the category of African American literature, thereby turning racial authorship into a vehicle for realizing profits.

The increasing popularity of audiovisual translation in recent years has contributed to a better understanding of the audiovisual world. Nevertheless, some modalities such as voice-over have not received thorough attention. In Poland, where voice-over is the prevailing audiovisual, one voice talent reads out the entire dialogue list in a monotonous way. The translated version is subject to time and space restrictions, and both the original and the translated soundtracks are audible at the same time, making it interesting to analyze a key aspect of voice-over: the process of synchronization. Departing from a categorization which originated within the field of dubbing, and which was later extended and applied to the voice-over of non-fictional products by Franco, Matamala and Orero, this article aims to assess whether voice-over isochrony, literal synchrony, kinetic synchrony and action synchrony are maintained in the voice-over of fiction genres in Poland, and if so, what strategies are used to achieve this. The corpus is made up of four 15-minutes samples from movies belonging to four different genres: a comedy (Whatever Works, directed by Woody Allen 2009), a drama (Marvin’s Room, directed by Jerry Zaks 1996), an action movie (Spy Game, directed by Tony Scott 2001), and a musical (Nine, directed by Rob Marshall 2009). The study highlights the specificities of synchrony in fictional movies and opens the door for future research into this previously underestimated audiovisual transfer mode.

The present study aims to identify the optimal body-size/shape and maturity characteristics associated with superior fitness test performances having controlled for body-size, sex, and chronological-age differences. The sample consisted of 597 Tunisian children (396 boys and 201 girls) aged 8 to 15 years. Three sprint speeds recorded at 10, 20 and 30 m; two vertical and two horizontal jump tests; a change-of-direction and a handgrip-strength tests, were assessed during physical-education classes. Allometric modelling was used to identify the benefit of being an early or late maturer. Findings showed that being tall and light is the ideal shape to be successful at most physical fitness tests, but the height-to-weight “shape” ratio seems to be test-dependent. Having controlled for body-size/shape, sex, and chronological age, the model identified maturity-offset as an additional predictor. Boys who go earlier/younger through peak-height-velocity (PHV) outperform those who go at a later/older age. However, most of the girls’ physical-fitness tests peaked at the age at PHV and decline thereafter. Girls whose age at PHV was near the middle of the age range would appear to have an advantage compared to early or late maturers. These findings have important implications for talent scouts and coaches wishing to recruit children into their sports/athletic clubs.

The present study aims to identify the optimal body-size/shape and maturity characteristics associated with superior fitness test performances having controlled for body-size, sex, and chronological-age differences. The sample consisted of 597 Tunisian children (396 boys and 201 girls) aged 8 to 15 years. Three sprint speeds recorded at 10, 20 and 30 m; two vertical and two horizontal jump tests; a change-of-direction and a handgrip-strength tests, were assessed during physical-education classes. Allometric modelling was used to identify the benefit of being an early or late maturer. Findings showed that being tall and light is the ideal shape to be successful at most physical fitness tests, but the height-to-weight “shape” ratio seems to be test-dependent. Having controlled for body-size/shape, sex, and chronological age, the model identified maturity-offset as an additional predictor. Boys who go earlier/younger through peak-height-velocity (PHV) outperform those who go at a later/older age. However, most of the girls’ physical-fitness tests peaked at the age at PHV and decline thereafter. Girls whose age at PHV was near the middle of the age range would appear to have an advantage compared to early or late maturers. These findings have important implications for talent scouts and coaches wishing to recruit children into their sports/athletic clubs.

Résumé La génération des baby-boomers a beaucoup enrichi l’institution culturelle au Québec, a soutenu des mouvements intellectuels et sociaux tels le formalisme et le féminisme, et a favorisé l’avènement d’écrivains de grand talent. Parmi eux, Louise Dupré mérite une place à part pour la qualité de son oeuvre, tant de critique que de fiction. Dès son premier recueil de poèmes, elle a manifesté une originalité et une rigueur jamais démenties par la suite. Encore peu étudiée, son oeuvre poétique reçoit ici une première lecture d’ensemble. Ses caractéristiques formelles et thématiques font l’objet d’une mise en relation globale. Nous cherchons essentiellement à dégager l’évolution d’un discours poétique sincère et exigeant.

The review reveals the content and the directions of the non-fiction book written by a professor Basilova; this book is written about the history of teaching deaf-blind children in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and modern Russia. The problems of scientific and methodological supporting the deafblind children are described through the prism of a working career of the three famous domestic speech pathologists and psychologists: Ivan Sokoliansky, Augusta Yarmolenko and Alexander Meshcheryakov.

In one of the fictive dialogues from his 1872 book The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. dispensed advice to any scholar planning to start a private library: I have a kind of notion of the way in which a library ought to be put together – no, I don't mean that, I mean ought to grow. . . . A scholar must shape his own shell, secrete it one might almost say, for secretion is only separation, you know, of certain elements derived from the material world about us. And a scholar's study, with books lining its walls, is his shell. It isn't a mollusk's shell, either; it's a caddice-worm's shell. (211) Here, the scholar's library entails separation in several senses both physical and ideal. On the one hand, books form a literal carapace insulating the scholar from the outside world – and perhaps even from the distractions of home life. At the same time, the library operates by separation in the sense of discrimination. In accumulating his library, the scholar winnows a vast textual tradition into the manageable dimensions of a single room, and curriculum just enough for a singular human life. Most interesting, however, is the suggestion that the scholar “secretes” the library, as though the books are somehow synthesized from within as an expression of, and memorial to, the scholar's essential self. The caddice worm, as Holmes informs us, “has his special fancy as to what he will pick up and glue together, with a kind of natural cement he provides himself” (211). This may strike us as a crudely glandular way of envisioning the relationship between tradition and the individual talent. Nevertheless, the passage is in keeping with the late-Victorian obsession with the private library, as well as with period representations of the scholar, who is best encountered within a concealing womb of books, carrying on secret exchange with the dusty relics of his own intellectual pilgrimage.

An author creative process includes the issue of why and how the author wrote the novel. Among the chicklit and Teenlit novelists there are similar supporting factors, namely talent, hobby, intelligence, and daily life experience around them. The Supporting factors are then combined with skills, methods and storytelling which spontaneous and honest.They never thought about storytelling techniques when writing a novel. They do not think about the structure of fiction such as the grooves, figure-characterizations, backgrounds, storytelling, and so on.The creative process of the authors can not be separated from the influence of life in their surrounding environment that provides reality as a source of inspiration to write the story. The reality is in the form of social problems, personal problems, society, humanity, divinity, and so on. All sorts of information and experience are gained through association and access to information technology. All are quickly and simultaneously enrich the treasury of their knowledge so that they can talk anywhere, anytime, and about anything. Thus, the young chicklit and Teenlit novelists become successful and famous is not in a sudden and without a process. Nor because special facilities given by publisher or certain parties, but through hard work. Lot of terms and conditions that they can meet through their struggle.Thus, it can be concluded that the creative process of chicklit and Teenlit novelist is a blend of natural talent, hobby, intelligence, and life experience, supporting by intelligence, hard work, a wealth of experience, breadth of relationships, social sensitivity, the ability of storytelling and writing skills.

William Dean Howells was sympathetic to African Americans. This is apparent not only in his fiction but in essays focusing on Paul Laurence Dunbar, Booker T. Washington, and Charles W. Chesnutt. All three typed the "sweetness" that Howells was delighted to find among representative members of a still-oppressed race. The Howells-Chesnutt relationship was a cordial one in which the former publicly expressed his a appreciation of the latter's literary talent and thus assisted him in achieving his rise to celebrity; Howells's needs, too, were met, since Chesnutt displayed a freedom from "bitterness" that bode well for black-white relations in the future. The relationship ended abruptly when, with the publication of The Marrow of Tradition (1901), Chesnutt disclosed a vindictive side of his personality that Howells had not seen. Reviewing Marrow as a "bitter, bitter" book, a disillusioned Howells also wrote to Henry B. Fuller: "Good Lord! How such a negro must hate us."

The author of the article assesses the special editorial vision of Nikolay Nekrasov, from the first works of the future great writer who saw his sight in Leo Tolstoy, and in Nikolay Strakhov – a person close to literature, but who initially had the makings of a critic, not an artist of the word. The article notes the special merit of Nikolay Nekrasov in the discovery of new talents and support of novice writers, we analyse the manner and specificity of the first works of Leo Tolstoy and Nikolay Strakhov, sent to Nikolay Nekrasov's journal Sovremennik (The Contemporary). The author of the work turns to the origins of the literary path of the writer and critic, denotes their peculiar convergence in themes: both novice authors were strongly influenced by the sentimental tradition and were attentive to spiritual quests, but that at the same time explains the difference in the talent of Leo Tolstoy and Nikolay Strakhov, which manifested itself even in relation to their own first works of fiction, as can be judged by their letters to Nikolay Nekrasov.

Design is an artistic fact on its own. To design requires a special creativity. Being creative is all about a person’s different perception level and an exclusive talent. This fact shapes itself with an artistic perception talent. Design constitutes most of the professions’ basis. Among them, there are interior decoration creativity that includes interior design, aesthetic beauty, functionality, spatial organisation, graphic design and industrial design, which reserve many features in itself. Design is important and special because it includes these qualifications. Interior architecture is different from the other kinds in terms of both art and functionality. Indoors can provide artistic value and it can also be resolved as only functional. However, they must have artistic sides in terms of their uniqueness. Indeed, all of the designed things like place, element, shape and fiction can be considered as an artistic value. Perception format or type of expressing what is perceived can change for each person. There can be lots of reasons behind this. Among the most basic ones, current conditions, life styles, customs, spontaneous change of mood and expectations can be taken into account. Differences for each people take shape within a very ordinary time span. In this research, the questions of whether a notion provides different meanings for each people and within the concept of design, how the same notion can be performed and for what purposes it is applied. Based on the research models conducted with 1st grade students in Black Sea Technical University who took the first step for being interior architectures, expressing the artistic dimensions from a notion is aimed. With the help of this research, by examining the models, concepts of design and art are evaluated Keywords: design, art, interior design, design education, boundary concept

The article is devoted to literary critic Il'ya Gruzdev. Published in 1925, an essay on the biography of Maxim Gorky, firmly linked the two names. Since that time, the author had firmly established a creative characteristic: the biographer of Maxim Gorky. The article considers other facets of literary and literary talent of Il'ya Gruzdev. The origin of the textology of Maxim Gorky's works of art is connected with his name. He was the compiler and editor of two editions of the works of the proletarian literature founder in the "State publishing house of fiction" in 1928-1930 and 1931-1934. For the researchers of Maxim Gorky's work, as a huge factual material, there is a correspondence between Maxim Gorky and Il'ya Gruzdev, which lasted from 1925 to 1936 (it was published in 1961). The article touches upon the issues of Il'ya Gruzdev's creative work after Maxim Gorky's death (1936). In the period from 1939 to 1941, he was the editor of Leningrad magazine "Zvezda" (Star). Attention is drawn to the bibliographic work of Il'ya Gruzdev, who was the author of a number of bibliographic books devoted to Maxim Gorky.

Following its translation into more than thirty languages, Roberto Saviano’s non-fiction novel Gomorrah [Gomorra], has unveiled to a vast number of readers across the globe the endless saga of Naples’ crime syndicate, the Camorra (from which the book’s title derives its bitter play on words). Literary critics and reviewers in the UK and in the U.S. have widely acclaimed Saviano’s talent in depicting the corruption plaguing Naples’ gloomy and degraded hinterland, although the sociocultural context portrayed in Gomorrah is naturally distant from the repertoire of the target culture: the text is widely populated by culture-bound concepts and implicit meanings, which further complicates the translation process. Through a contrastive analysis of the Italian and English versions of the exposé, this study explores the strategies employed in translating the voices and deeds of Naples’ mobsters, as well as the socioeconomic setting of the Camorra. With reference to types of non-equivalence between the two language versions, this article investigates to what extent the English translation contributes to the identity-building process of the Camorra as a separate and far more deadly criminal organization vis-à-vis the Sicilian Mafia.

Introduction. Robert Owen is a very prominent figure in the history of economic thought in England in the early XIX century. His talent was evident as an economist-theorist and in his organizational skills, which allowed Owen to make significant improvements in the textile industry.Purpose is to generalize the economic views of a prominent economist in conjunction with his experimental and reformist activities in production in order to create an «ideal labor community» that will improve the world of capitalism, provide high profits for entrepreneurs and prosperous lives of employees. Analyze the views of the scientist on the ways and means of creating a future society.Methods. The methodological basis of the study are such general scientific methods as analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, which were used to assess the views and recommendations of the scientist to improve existing social relations; historical method – to understand the causes and essence of the evolution of views on existing society and the importance of moral and educational education; positive and normative methods – to study the common and distinctive features in the views of the future social order of the representatives of utopian socialism.Results. A large number of works by R. Owen have been studied and it has been found that his social utopia and reformist activities were contradictory, his «projects» were mostly unrealistic, but same time had a significant impact on the labor and trade union movement in England and the development of economic thought. The scientist found that private property was the cause of many crimes and misfortunes. It was found that R. Owen had been focused on trying to make practical changes, develop specific proposals for the restructuring of society, improving working conditions and living conditions of workers. He saw the possibility of improving the living conditions of employees in the organization of community work, the effectiveness of which he tested during the famous experiment in New Lenark. According to R. Owen, a good society should be based on science and governed by simple and healthy principles of equality and justice.Discussion. The prospect of further research lies in a deeper and more detailed analysis of individual works of the famous economist, that will help to understand the logic of his way of thinking and give a more objective assessment of the contribution of R. Owen in the development of world economic thought.

This is an exciting time for North American Jewish literature. In the past ten years, there has been an explosion of writing by new and established authors. In the field of fiction alone, the shelves have filled with titles by such fine talent as Pearl Abraham, Melvin Jules Bukiet, Michael Chabon, Nathan Englander, Myla Goldberg, Ehud Havatzelet, Dara Horn, Jonathan Safran Foer, Joan Leegant, Tova Mirvis, Jon Papernick, Jonathan Rosen, Aryeh Lev Stollman, and many others, as well as new works by veteran writers such as Allegra Goodman, Thane Rosenbaum, and Steve Stern. Add to these names the preeminent Cynthia Ozick, and don’t forget Philip Roth, whose productivity continues unabated and whose latest novels include some of his strongest work ever. A variety of striking themes has come to the fore in this new wave of literary creativity. Notable trends include an unprecedented attention to religion (especially Orthodox Jewish life); a fascination with women’s lives and with questions of gender and sexual orientation; a concern with the experiences of the second and succeeding generations of the Holocaust; a nostalgia for and rediscovery of the old country; a consideration of new Americans in the 1980s and 1990s; and a rethinking of what it means to be a Jew in Israel and in the Diaspora.

In this article, we are talking about how the time of radical changes transforms the literary situation, changes the very content of modernity. This content includes a change in the types of artistic thinking, the interaction of style trends, the emergence of relevant topics, the change in the very forms of existence of a literary work, the change in the writer's status in society, the birth of new reader requests. Literary modernity is considered as a polyvector process, which includes various creative groups and writing communities. They offer their own innovations. The essence of the novelty of the next epoch can be expressed in an active dispute with the previous literary models. Contemporaries can put different content into the concept of a new one. So, in a highly political 1920-ies features of the new could suddenly acquire focus not on the ideological dominance of creativity and talent on the aesthetic quality of its products, to update the art forms (Serapion's brothers, Pass). Under the new one, we understood the variants of a fruitful synthesis of fiction and everyday life, realism and symbolism, realism and expressionism, point specifics and broad abstraction. The fate of individual genres (for example, the novel) was considered. The new could manifest itself in the very understanding of the timeliness (relevance) of a literary work. With the gradual introduction of strict regulation in the literary process, the understanding of such relevance changed (the theory of social order). The non-obviousness of the new (hidden timeliness) allows us to reevaluate the literature of the 1920s, to look at it from a century-old distance. The true innovations of this time are revealed.

The article presents investigation the phenomenon, characteristic for poetry and prose by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya. It is actualization of the observer figure in the plot. The author determines poems by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya have stories micro-plots. The center is a lyrical heroine watching else’s life. The poetic creation of this plot position is eclectic. The motif theme is developed with the help of romantic and naturalistic clichés. On the one hand, the author reproduces the romantic situation of social alienation, elegiac motives of memory, loss, etc. On the other hand, the author actualizes the theme of the influence of the environment on the person, the idea of useful work, etc. The article shows the plot position, formed in poetry, organically entered into prose in the heyday of the “fiction talent” by writer. In prose works the lyrical component is absorbed by the plot. The observer is not only not removed from the events, but also actively involved in them. The article gives a thorough description of the story “Behind the wall” (1862). This story is exceptionally representative. The narrator watching the love story of his neighbors is brought to the fore. Fable observation is presented through a situation of listening, not peeping. The actualization of the poetic principle in the prose plot leads to the weakening of “fabulousness”. The constructive beginning, forming a prose plot, is the reflection of the narrator. Else’s love story is the background of his experiences. The shift of the plot emphasis from the lovers to the narrator leads to the fact that the social component of the plot, associated with the issue of female emancipation, is “extinguished”, there is a psychologization of the narrative. In conclusion that the figure of the observer in poetry and prose by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya has an important plot value, organizing the semantic core of the plot. In the poetic and prose versions of the plot position is repeated the same motif theme. In the process of observation before the lyrical heroine and the hero-narrator open the opportunity to live else’s life. The ways of its development differ in the poetry and prose by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya.

The article analyzes the importance of travel literature in the genre of belles non-fiction for shaping the geographical images of countries and nations. In this aspect, the travel prose of the Ukrainian writer, cinematographer, and photographer Sofia Yablonska (1907–1971) was used. Genetic types of sensory verbal geographical images, in particular visual, audio, kinaesthetic (based on smell (odoriferous) and touch (tactile)) are distinguished using the travel novels “Charm of Morocco” (1932), “From the country of rice and opium” (1936), and “Far horizons” (1939) as an example. The artistic syncretism of geographical representation of S. Yablonska is noted (verbal images are harmoniously supplemented with photo and film frames, drawings). The wide spaciousness of the author’s thinking, which extends from specific places to oceanic and celestial infinities, is revealed. The content of S. Yablonska’s travel literature, which is essentially the author’s autobiogeography, is demonstrated by the mega-metaphor of home – the global world is like a native home for her. The natural and anthropocentric parallels of S. Yablonska’s literary texts employed to create geographical images are identified; the author’s accentuation on chronicling the sensations related to the natural features of the lands depicted (depiction of the sun, sea expanses and coasts, mountainous regions of China and volcanoes of Malaysia, etc.) is emphasized. The realism of verbal geographical images is highlighted. They are placed in specific geographical coordinates and characterized by completeness, diversity, grasp of the essential features of the phenomena depicted. The talent of the author’s thinking capable to see the general in each individual case is shown. The combination of descriptive and rational approaches (comparative as well as cause-and-effect methods) for creating cultural images of cities and people is noted. Author’s attention to the negative consequences of the European colonization on the autochthonous culture, the mentality of the enslaved peoples, and the promotion of their liberation in the future is emphasized. The conclusion is drawn about a harmonious blend of the Ukrainian and high-culture European civilization, in the personality of S. Yablonska who enriched the European culture with the ideas of openness and tolerance. The geographical images of exotic countries created by the writer are analyzed in the context of modern humanistic philosophy of travel, the concept of aestheticism, the natural and ethical concept of happiness, and the concept of environmental behaviourism. Key words: travelling literature, geographical image, geographical visual, geographical audial, geographical kinestet.

The article is devoted to the study of D.Chyzhevsky’s contribution to the analysis of the artistic filling of ancient chronicles through the use of the stylistic method of analysis. An important conclusion is the assertion of the national chronicles of the eleventh and thirteenth centuries that their authors are highly educated, good connoisseurs of the Bible, ancient, Byzantine literatures, works by Homer, Joseph Flavius, George Hamartol, Joan Malalai, the Byzantine chronograph, Alexandria, especially popular in the princely environment, and the images of Alexander of Macedon, Darius, reproduced in it, as well as the image of Hercules, were close and exemplary for our princes. As for the brief history of national writing, D.Chyzhevsky, analyzing the historical and aesthetic canvas of the chronicles of the eleventh and eighteenth centuries, adequately and convincingly characterized the artistic value and originality of memorials, revealed the crucial importance in their creation of the high erudition available to the authors, the thorough knowledge of the history of Ukrainian and foreign, in particular of ancient, literatures; emphasized in the chroniclers the literary ability, heroic and patriotic abilities, national centrism and moral and religious nobility, attachment to traditions, a part of the literary and chronicles, which contributed to the writing of majestic epic paintings addressed to the depicted and described heroes of works. The historian of literature has convincingly proved that such a long-term development of the genre of the chronicles (XI-XVIII centuries) was facilitated by the content-artistic perfection of «The Tale of the Past Years», the talent of its founders, Nikon, Nestor, Sylvester, whose own work, the idea of unity of Russia in the struggle against internal and external enemies, which remained urgent throughout all subsequent centuries, and a significant conservatism of the genre, focused on the upbringing of historical generic, national, cultural memories, laid the solid foundations for the development of our entire national first literature which convincingly demonstrate chronicles, historical fiction themes XIX-XXI centuries. The own «History of Ukrainian Literature», the level and conclusions of the analysis of the chronicles D.Chyzhevsky scientifically reasonably developed the principle of national centrist, founded in his medieval works by M.Maksymovych and confirmed by the formation and development of our literary thought. In them, the doctrine proved that in the analysis of ancient writing, chronicles must use a stylistic approach to express their artistic, their aesthetic nature and value. The new thought of the scientist was his noteworthy that the chronicles have signs of the classical direction, characteristic of the works of the elite princely-Sarmatian and Cossack-Kozar tribes.

Opera Zora D., composed by Isidora Zebeljan during 2002 and 2003, and which was premiered in Amsterdam in June 2003, is the first Serbian opera that had a world premiere abroad. It is also the first Serbian opera that has been staged outside Serbia since 1935, after being acclaimed at a competition organized by the Genesis Foundation from London. Isidora Zebeljan was commissioned (granted financial backing) to compose a complete opera with a secured stage realization. The Dutch Chamber Opera (Opera studio Nederland) and the Viennese Chamber Opera (Wiener Kammeroper) were the co-producers of the first production. The opera was directed by David Pountney, the renowned opera director, while an international team of young singers and celebrated artists assisted the co-production. The opera was played three times in Amsterdam. Winfried Maczewski conducted the Amsterdam Nieuw Ensemble whereas Daniel Hoyem Cavazza conducted the Wiener Kammeroper on twelve performances. The Viennese premier of Zora D. opened the season of celebrations, thus marking the 50th anniversary of the Wiener Kammeroper. The libretto, based on the script for a TV film by Dusan Ristic, was co-written by Isidora Zebeljan, Milica Zebeljan and Borislav Cicovacki. Speaking of genre, the libretto represents a m?lange of thriller, melodrama and mystery, with elements of fiction. The opera consists of the prologue and seven scenes. The story, set in the present-day Belgrade, also goes back to the 1930?s and the periods interweave. The opera was written for four vocalists: the soprano, the baritone, and two mezzo-sopranos. The chamber orchestra has fifteen musicians. The story: One summer day in 1935, Belgrade poetess Zora Dulijan mysteriously disappears. Sixty years later, Mina, an ordinary girl from Belgrade, quite unexpectedly becomes part of an incredible story, which gradually unravels as time goes by. Led by a dream (recurring night after night, with some vague verses about poplar trees and contours of a mysterious woman with a silver scarf being all that Mina remembers) she sets out to solve the mystery that seems to haunt her for no apparent reason. Part of the secret is also an invisible force, which Mina uses to gradually piece together the story of a great love that was brutally brought to an end 60 years ago and now seeks fulfillment. At the same time, Vida, a woman in her 80s, who has just returned to Belgrade from a long exile, begins to feel tortured and haunted by ghouls from the past, the very same she has been trying to escape all those years. Mina, desperate to solve the mystery, and Vida, in search of final rest and redemption, meet to disclose to us the answer and tell us what really happened to Zora D. The leading characters of the opera, whose main attribute is illusiveness, undergo transformation that is something rarely found in opera literature. This quality of the characters and the story, as well as the absence of a real drama in the libretto, matches the specific idea of a contemporary opera. Unlike composers who insist on giving characters psychological quality, thus reducing their emotions to clich?s for reasons of clarity, Isidora Zebeljan demonstrates a need for a completely different type of opera. Her idea is to have an opera which focuses on the sensual exploits of music itself. This is the very type of opera sought after by Isidora Zebeljan. The first and most striking feature of her music is a very unique melodic invention. Opera Zora D. could be described as a necklace of thickly threaded music pearls. Microelements of the traditional music from Serbia (Vojvodina), Romania and the south of the Balkans give her melodies a very special quality. Those elements, however, have not been taken over in their entirety, nor do they exist in the form that would link this music to any particular type of folk music. Music elements of the traditional music, incorporated in the music expression of Isidora Zebeljan, provide additional distinctiveness and the colour, while being experienced as an integral part of Zebeljan?s creative being which carries within itself the awareness of the composer?s musical roots. Melodic elements of the opera expressed in such a manner give form to vocal parts, which require of performers great musicality and perfect technique without compromising the nature of their vocal expression. Specific chords with a diminished fifth, resulting from the use of folk music scales with augmented second, give the opera a distinct harmonic quality. The rhythmic and metric components of music are complex, naturally stemming from the melody and are characterized by a mixture of rhythms and changeable metrics. The rhythmic patterns of percussion are incorporated in the whole by parallel lining up of melodic and rhythmic layers, so that they produce sonorous multiplicity. Very often the rhythmic elements have characteristics of a dance. The chamber orchestra consists of flute (piccolo and alto), clarinet and bass-clarinet, saxophone (soprano and alto) bassoon, French horn, trumpet, harp, piano, percussion, and string quintet. By providing specific orchestration and coloring, Isidora Zebeljan manages to completely shift the real dramatic suspense from words to music particularly the orchestra, thus causing various emotional states to quickly change. Speaking of structure, the opera represents an infinite sequence of melodies. Although rarely, melodic entities have, in some places, the form of arias. There are no real recitatives in the entire opera. Each segment of the opera belongs to a corresponding melodic section of the stage that they are part of. The extraordinary quality of the music in Zora D. lies in the music surprise that it provides, which is an element of the composer?s language and style rarely seen in the music literature but is a symbol of a special talent. Emotional states are not merely evoked through particular musical clich?s, the unusual origin of which may be found in the exceptional parallel quality of states stemming from the very music. The listener, in his or her initial encounter with the music of the opera, will never hear dark and disconsolate music when tragic and dramatic happenings are taking place. Listening to the music will, however, help them feel the sound layer of the tragedy that is present in the offered sound. They will not follow it consciously but, instead, they will be leaded to the exact emotional stimulus that they will not be able to defy rationally. Such a music expression we call a music fiction. Artistic team involved in the first production of Zora D. has discovered a HVS technique, which helps shifting elements of scenography, from one set into the next, very efficiently and effectively. Isidora Zebeljan?s opera Zora D. represents a great success of Serbian music on the international scene, and undoubtedly the greatest success of Serbian opera. Her music liberates listeners from the compulsion of reflecting upon the content they are listening to. Instead, her music compels them to feel.

Cities have been magnets for a wide diversity of talent and have captured the human imagination as centers of intellectual and cultural achievement since humans began to live together. To learn from the city means to engage with its assets and riches, but also with its pressing problems, contradictions, and paradoxes. It also means to reflect upon urban settings as places where civilizations often meet and define themselves, and where populations and infrastructure change over time, sometimes slowly, but in other cases, rapidly. Precisely because they are multi-layered, multi-dimensional, complex and challenging, cities offer rich opportunities for study abroad students to learn, no matter their disciplinary interests. The environmental issues and public health concerns manifested in cities, for example, offer many opportunities for disciplinary and interdisciplinary inquiry in the sciences, social sciences, as well as in the humanities, if to a lesser degree. The social fabric of cities, as well as their social inequities and other problems, can appeal to students in the social sciences, while the many varieties of cultural expression, both “high” and “low”, found it cities invite both exploration and creation. Cities’ many layers of history, their locations in particular geographical locales, their changing infrastructure and transitions in population, all can teach students to ask about how places (urban and non-urban) came to be what they are today, and how they might be in the future. Investigations of the city also allow students to think about who they are in relationship to others, what their relationship is to places, and which roles they will play in determining the future of the cities and other places they will call home in the future. In short, the cities where students study abroad can serve as laboratories for learning, rather than simply temporary residences or arenas for taking pleasure. The contributors to this volume are doing just this kind of work: asking how and why cities are appropriate venues for study abroad, and experimenting with ways to allow cities to become arenas for learning. The role of cities as sites for learning is not, of course, new. It was in Classical Athens (480–336 BCC), for example, that Western conceptions of philosophy, history, drama, and education emerged. Without the city, it would be hard to imagine the intellectual development and the enduring educational legacy of Socrates (e.g.dialectical reasoning, learning through persistent questioning and analysis, intellectual self-discipline, autonomous thinking, self-examination, self-criticism, high standards of moral conduct, intellectual honesty, and life-long learning). Cities in the Middle Ages (400–1400) hosted universities, where learning was considered sacred, not merely practical. Thus, Timbuktu became a vibrant center of learning, with libraries that rivaled anything in Christian Europe and the highest literacy rate in Africa. A quantum leap in cultural evolution, commercial vitality, technical innovation and new consciousness of humans at the center of the action took place over a two hundred year period beginning around 1450. This would have been unthinkable without great Renaissance cities such as Florence and Venice. Indeed, for the nature of learning, arguably the farthest-reaching long-term consequence of the Renaissance was the development of the scientific method, a truly intellectual and conceptual revolution that made human beings think differently about the world and themselves. Similarly, many of the great intellectual and practical breakthroughs of the Scientific Revolution (1500–1700) are nearly unthinkable without the city. Emerging from the intellectual cauldron of the city were, among others, the great minds of Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Kepler, Newton, Descartes, Galileo, and Bacon. The goal of education, if we follow Bacon, is knowledge in the service of improving the human condition. This continues to this day to be a goal of many study abroad students. Finally, the intellectual achievements that characterize the Enlightenment (1700–1800): secularism, cosmopolitanism, skepticism, security for the individual through the rule of law, personal freedom and autonomy, deep respect for human dignity, and intellectual and scientific inquiry are based in the interactions with others that are essential components of urban life. The articles in this volume offer their own contemporary examples of study abroad and the city, considered through an impressive range of approaches.The articles provide a balance between different theoretical and pedagogical approaches to the topic. Theoretical perspectives on the cities are central to a number of discussions in the volume. Lance Kenny, in “First City, Anti-City: Cain, Heterotopia, and Study Abroad,” argues that the time has come to underpin the practice of study abroad with theoretical perspectives. As an example, he suggests that the work of theorists such as Foucault (heterotopias) and Virilio (the anti-city) can provide study abroad students with the analytical tools to “know” the city. Rodriguez and Rink use Walter Benjamin’s notion of the flâneur to incorporate technology as a way for students to engage with the city. Benjamin’s writing on the flâneur is also introduced to students studying abroad in Athens by Augeri et al., who also draw on Dubord’s derive and psychogeography to provide students with frameworks for understanding urban realities and their reactions to them. Augeri et al. turn to de Certeau’s work on walking as rhetorical practice, while Patrick McGuire and James Spates demonstrate how the urban sociologist Jane Jacobs’ work helps students understand cities as shaped by culture and the residents who live in them. To discuss the impacts of globalization on cities, Gristwood and Woolf draw on theoretical writings about the city (Raban), fiction and poetry (Kurieshi, Brecht, Eliot, Ackroyd, Zephaniah), writers writing about writing (Sandhu and Upstone, for example), perspectives from geography (Halbert and Rutherford, Massey, Wills et al.) and sociology (Castells, Jacobs, Sassen), and government statistics. Milla Cozart Riggio, Lisa Sapolis, and Xianming Chen also look at how globalization is transforming cities and discuss how their home city, Hartford, is used as the starting point for students’ engagement with cities and globalization. Other articles focus on pedagogical approaches to assisting American students abroad engage with their study abroad cities. Scott Blair points out that American students frequently have never learned to read a map, and delineates how mapping can be employed as a tool for analysis, as well as for fostering intercultural learning and tolerance for diversity and.engaged experiential learning. Mieka Ritsema, Barbara Knecht, and Kenneth Kruckemeyer also point to mapping as a useful tool for engaging students with cities encountered during study abroad. Thomas Ricks offers strategies for understanding Jerusalem’s multi-layered history through its contemporary reality. Evidence for the power of experiential learning in study abroad cities is offered by Thomas Wagenknecht. Wagenknecht’s interviews with educators in Germany, however, find that experiential learning has not yet earned the status of “academic” learning, and calls for more evidence about its outcomes. Finally, two articles discuss the impact of engaging home-campus faculty themselves as learners in cities abroad. Anne Ellen Geller, discussing a faculty writing institute, shows how engagement with daily life in contemporary Rome helps faculty understand and value the study abroad experience. Elizabeth Brewer discusses Beloit College’s faculty members’ experimentation with mapping, walking, and ethnographic research methods, including participant-observation. It has been humbling and enriching to read the rich work being undertaken on the city and study abroad and to work with the authors who contributed to this volume. It is hoped that the examples and discussions offered in this volume not only will be productive in themselves for readers, but also will generate new discussion, ideas, and practices. Elizabeth Brewer Beloit College Michael Monahan Macalester College Brethren Colleges Abroad

Taking William Boyd's post-2000 novels as symptomatic of wider problems in British writing during the period of the break-up of Britain, this essay suggests that what looks, at first, like a simple collapse in Boyd's talent in fact has produced texts illuminating, in their limitations, the difficulties of British affiliation in the era of Britishness's ideological exhaustion. Boyd is, on this reading, an exemplary counter-example to the canon of self-consciously Scottish fiction more commonly studied in the years since 1979.

Most Schulz experts assume that while working on The Booke of Idolatry, he did not start writing fiction yet. It has been generally believed that his literary talent surfaced rather late, although Jerzy Ficowski thought that Schulz might have tried writing some time earlier. In the critic’s opinion, the beginning of Schulz’s literary talent dated back to his correspondence with close friends in 1925–1926, but since all letters from that period have been lost there is no way to validate that claim. Jerzy Jarzębski supposes that Schulz’s fiction came into being rapidly, at once fully mature and perfect. Władysław Panas also points at Schulz’s magisterial literary debut, The Cinnamon Shops, when the author was already about forty years old. And yet, the present essay puts those hypotheses to test. Having searched the holdings of the Vasyl Stefanyk National Academic Library in Lviv, Ms. Khomych has demonstrated that Schulz made his debut in the early 1920s almost simultaneously in two fields: in art, with a one man show in the town of Boryslaw in 1921, which has been commonly known, and in literature in 1922. Ms Khomych discovered in the 25–26 no. (January 15, 1922) of the bi-weekly Świt, sponsored by the oil officials of Boryslaw, a short story titled “Undula,” signed with a penname “Marceli Weron.” A critical analysis of this story demonstrates a number of affinities both with Schulz’s art, and with his later fiction. The name of the title character, Undula, is the same as that of the main figure of the graphic works included in The Booke of Idolatry. Other similarities include masochistic eroticism and some characters and motifs typical of Schulz’s later stories: a child, a dream, a chambermaid named Adela, the Demiurge, a crab, and a cockroach. Moreover, the stylistic and lexical features of the text leave no doubt that Schulz must have been its author. Imitation by anyone is impossible since in the early 1920s none of his other literary works was available in print. Thus, one may assume that “Marceli Weron” was Schulz’s penname and “Undula” was his proper literary debut.

AbstractLudwig Büchner’s popular-scientific treatise »Die Macht der Vererbung « and Theodor Storm’s novella »Der Herr Etatsrath« serendipitously appeared in consecutive issues of Westermann’s illustrierte deutsche Monatshefte between June and August 1881. For Büchner, the numerous talents and conditions associated with heredity are determined by multicausal factors, ranging from direct inheritance to education and environment. In Storm’s novella, readers witness the downfall of the family Sternow, both despite and because of inherited mathematical talent, predisposition to alcoholism, and a neglectful familial environment. Storm’s »Herr Etatsrath« not only enacts through fiction the multicausal model of heredity proposed by Büchner’s »Die Macht der Vererbung «, but also calls into question the precise nature of inheritance and fate by juxtaposing the negative effects of heredity, such as alcoholism, with positive ones, such as special cognitive abilities.

Telgemeier, Raina, and Stephanie Yue. Smile. New York: Graphix-Scholastic, 2010. Print.The book I chose was Smile by Raina Telgemeier, published by Graphix. The book was about a girl named Raina who is in grade 6. One night after girl scouts her and her friends were racing to her front porch, and she severely injured her two front teeth. What follows is a long and frustrating journey with, on-again braces and other crazy things. I liked that the book is a comic book and not a chapter book. It's a really good book and it also won an award for the book. I also like that it's kind of a diary about Raina but it's also about her family. What I did not like about the book is I wish the book was longer because I like the book. Also I wish there was a little bit more words in the book. I would give the book: 5 stars out of 5. I would recommend the book to kids that are same age as me. Kids that are a little younger than me would also like it though.Highly Recommended: 5 out of 5 starsReviewer: HarlieMy name is Harlie. I love reading fairytale, mystery, and horror books. I don’t like non-fiction books because I think they are boring.

THE 4th PUCHON INTERNATIONAL FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL 2000 Only in its fourth year of operation, the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan) has become an important and unique festival in Korea. Despite being a year younger than its well-regarded counterpart, the Pusan International Film Festival, PiFan has already earned a reputation as a role model for festivals concentrating on the theme of fantasy. Just this year, it launched the Made In Korea section, ahead of Pusan, introducing films by an emerging wave of local talent such as the highly elegiac Kim Ki-duk. Two of Kim's new films, The Isle (Seom, 2000) and Real Fiction (Siljaesanghwang, 2000) were shown at the festival, helping to solidify its position as a venue for showing world standard works of art and entertainment. The festival has also launched the Asian premieres of independent American and European films which has gone on to create waves...

It is the same spectacle all over the Western world: whenever delegates gather to discuss the development and consequences of new media technologies, a handful of people among them will stand out from the crowd, and somehow seem not quite to fit in with the remaining assortment of techno-evangelists, Internet ethnographers, multimedia project leaders, and online culture critics. At some point in the proceedings, they'll get to the podium and hold a talk on their ideas for the future of copyright protection and intellectual property (IP) rights in the information age; when they are finished, the reactions of the audience typically range from mild "what was that all about?" amusement to sheer "they haven't got a clue" disbelief. Spare a thought for copyright lawyers; they're valiantly fighting a losing battle. Ever since the digitalisation and networking of our interpersonal and mass media made information transmission and duplication effortless and instantaneous, they've been trying to come up with ways to uphold and enforce concepts of copyright which are fundamentally linked to information as bound to physical objects (artifacts, books, CDs, etc.), as Barlow has demonstrated so clearly in "Selling Wine without Bottles". He writes that "copyright worked well because, Gutenberg notwithstanding, it was hard to make a book. ... Books had material surfaces to which one could attach copyright notices, publisher's marques, and price tags". If you could control the physical media which were used to transmit information (paper, books, audio and video tapes, as well as radio and TV sets, or access to cable systems), you could control who made copies when and where, and at what price. This only worked as long as the technology to make copies was similarly scarce, though: as soon as most people learnt to write, or as faxes and photocopiers became cheaper, the only real copyright protection books had was the effort that would have to be spent to copy them. With technology continuously advancing (perhaps even at accellerating pace), copyright is soon becoming a legal fiction that is losing its link to reality. Indeed, we are now at a point where we have the opportunity -- the necessity, even -- to shift the fictional paradigm, to replace the industrial-age fiction of protective individual copyright with an information-age fiction of widespread intellectual cooperation. As it becomes ever easier to bypass and ignore copyright rules, and as copyright thus becomes ever more illusionary, this new fiction will correspondingly come ever closer to being realised. To Protect and to ... Lose Today, the lawyers' (and their corporate employers') favourite weapon in their fight against electronic copyright piracy are increasingly elaborate protection mechanisms -- hidden electronic signatures to mark intellectual property, electronic keys to unlock copyrighted products only for legitimate users (and sometimes only for a fixed amount of time or after certain licence payments), encryption of sensitive information, or of entire products to prevent electronic duplication. While the encryption of information exchanges between individuals has been proven to be a useful deterrent against all but the most determined of hackers, it's interesting to note that practically no electronic copyright protection mechanism of mass market products has ever been seen to work. However good and elaborate the protection efforts, it seems that as long as there is a sufficient number of interested consumers unwilling to pay for legitimate access, copy protections will be cracked eventually: the rampant software piracy is the best example. On the other hand, where copy protections become too elaborate and cumbersome, they end up killing the product they are meant to protect: this is currently happening in the case of some of the pay-per-view or limited-plays protection schemes forced upon the U.S. market for Digital Versatile Discs (DVDs). The eventual failure of such mechanisms isn't a particularly recent observation, even. When broadcast radio was first introduced in Australia in 1923, it was proposed that programme content should be protected (and stations financed) by fixing radio receivers to a particular station's frequency -- by buying such a 'sealed set' receiver you would in effect subscribe to a station and acquire the right to receive the content it provided. Never known as uninventive, those Australians who this overprotectiveness didn't completely put off buying a receiver (radio was far from being a proven mass medium at the time, after all) did of course soon break the seal, and learnt to adjust the frequency to try out different stations -- or they built their own radios from scratch. The 'sealed set' scheme was abandoned after only nine months. Even with the development of copy protection schemes since the 1920s, a full (or at least sufficiently comprehensive) protection of intellectual property seems as unattainable a fiction as it was then. Protection and copying technology are never far apart in development anyway, but even more fundamentally, the protected products are eventually meant to be used, after all. No matter how elaborately protected a CD, a video, or a computer programme is, it will still have to be converted into sound waves, image information, or executable code, and at that level copying will still remain possible. In the absence of workable copy protection, however, copies will be made in large amounts -- even more so since information is now being spread and multiplied around the globe virtually at the speed of light. Against this tide of copies, any attempts to use legislation to at least force the payment of royalties from illegitimate users are also becoming increasingly futile. While there may be a few highly publicised court cases, the multitude of small transgressions will remain unanswered. This in turn undermines the equality before the law that is a basic human right: increasingly, the few that are punished will be able to argue that, if "everybody does it", to single them out is highly unfair. At the same time, corporate efforts to uphold the law may be counterproductive: as Barlow writes, "against the swift tide of custom, the Software Publishers' current practice of hanging a few visible scapegoats is so obviously capricious as to only further diminish respect for the law". Quite simply, their legal costs may not be justified by the results anymore. Abandoning Copyright Law If copyright has become a fiction, however -- one that is still, despite all evidence, posited as reality by the legal system --, and if the makeup of today's electronic media, particularly the Internet, allow that fiction to be widely ignored and circumvented in daily practice -- despite all corporate legal efforts --, how is this disparity between law and reality to be solved? Barlow offers a clear answer: "whenever there is such profound divergence between the law and social practice, it is not society that adapts". He goes on to state that it may well be that when the current system of intellectual property law has collapsed, as seems inevitable, that no new legal structure will arise in its place. But something will happen. After all, people do business. When a currency becomes meaningless, business is done in barter. When societies develop outside the law, they develop their own unwritten codes, practices, and ethical systems. While technology may undo law, technology offers methods for restoring creative rights. When William Gibson invented the term 'cyberspace', he described it as a "consensual hallucination" (67). As the removal of copyright to the realm of the fictional has been driven largely by the Internet and its 'freedom of information' ethics, perhaps it is apt to speak of a new approach to intellectual property (or, with Barlow, to 'creative rights') as one of consensual, collaborative use of such property. This approach is far from being fully realised yet, and must so for now remain fiction, too, but it is no mere utopian vision -- in various places, attempts are made to put into place consensual schemes of dealing with intellectual property. They also represent a move from IP hoarding to IP use. Raymond speaks of the schemes competing here as the 'cathedral' and the 'bazaar' system. In the cathedral system, knowledge is tightly controlled, and only the finished product, "carefully crafted by individual wizards or small bands of mages working in splendid isolation" (1), is ever released. This corresponds to traditional copyright approaches, where company secrets are hoarded and locked away (sometimes only in order to keep competitors from using them), and breaches punished severely. The bazaar system, on the other hand, includes the entire community of producers and users early on in the creative process, up to the point of removing the producer/user dichotomy altogether: "no quiet, reverent cathedral-building here -- rather, ... a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches ... out of which a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles", as Raymond admits (1). The Linux 'Miracle' Raymond writes about one such bazaar-system project which provides impressive proof that the approach can work, however: the highly acclaimed Unix-based operating system Linux. Instigated and organised by Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds, this enthusiast-driven, Internet-based development project has achieved more in less than a decade than what many corporate developers (Microsoft being the obvious example) can do in thrice that time, and with little financial incentive or institutional support at that. As Raymond describes, "the Linux world behaves in many respects like a free market or an ecology, a collection of selfish agents attempting to maximise utility which in the process produces a self-correcting spontaneous order more elaborate and efficient than any amount of central planning could achieve" (10). Thus, while there is no doubt that individual participants will eventually always also be driven by selfish reasons, there is collaboration towards the achievement of communal goals, and a consensus about what those goals are: "while coding remains an essentially solitary activity, the really great hacks come from harnessing the attention and brainpower of entire communities. The developer who uses only his or her own brain in a closed project is going to fall behind the developer who knows how to create an open, evolutionary context in which bug-spotting and improvements get done by hundreds of people" (Raymond 10). It is obvious that such collaborative projects need a structure that allows for the immediate participation of a large community, and so in the same way that the Internet has been instrumental in dismantling traditional copyright systems, it is also a driving factor in making these new approaches possible: "Linux was the first project to make a conscious and successful effort to use the entire world as its talent pool. I don't think it's a coincidence that the gestation period of Linux coincided with the birth of the World Wide Web, and that Linux left its infancy during the same period in 1993-1994 that saw the takeoff of the ISP industry and the explosion of mainstream interest in the Internet. Linus was the first person who learned how to play by the new rules that pervasive Internet made possible" (Raymond 10). While some previous collaborative efforts exist (such as shareware schemes, which have existed ever since the advent of programmable home computers), their comparatively limited successes underline the importance of a suitable communication medium. The success of Linux has now begun to affect corporate structures, too: informational material for the Mozilla project, in fact, makes direct reference to the Linux experience. On the Net, Mozilla is as big as it gets -- instituted to continue development of Netscape Communicator-based Web browsers following Netscape's publication of the Communicator source code, it poses a serious threat to Microsoft's push (the legality of which is currently under investigation in the U.S.) to increase marketshare for its Internet Explorer browser. Much like Linux, Mozilla will be a collaborative effort: "we intend to delegate authority over the various modules to the people most qualified to make decisions about them. We intend to operate as a meritocracy: the more good code you contribute, the more responsibility you will be given. We believe that to be the only way to continue to remain relevant, and to do the greatest good for the greatest number" ("Who Is Mozilla.org?"), with the Netscape corporation only one among that number, and a contributor amongst many. Netscape itself intends to release browsers based on the Mozilla source code, with some individual proprietary additions and the benefits corporate structures allow (printed manuals, helplines, and the like), but -- so it seems -- it is giving up its unlimited hold over the course of development of the browser. Such actions afford an almost prophetic quality to Barlow's observation that "familiarity is an important asset in the world of information. It may often be the case that the best thing you can do to raise the demand for your product is to give it away". The use of examples from the computer world should not be seen to mean that the consensual, collaborative use of intellectual property suggested here is limited only to software -- it is, however, no surprise that a computer-based medium would first be put to use to support computer-based development projects. Producers and artists from other fields can profit from networking with their peers and clients just as much: artists can stay in touch with their audience and one another, working on collaborative projects such as the brilliant Djam Karet CD Collaborator (see Taylor's review in Gibraltar), professional interest groups can exchange information about the latest developments in their field as well as link with the users of their products to find out about their needs or problems, and the use of the Net as a medium of communication for academic researchers was one of its first applications, of course. In many such cases, consensual collaboration would even speed up the development process and help iron out remaining glitches, beating the efforts of traditional institutions with their severely guarded intellectual property rights. As Raymond sees it, for example, "no commercial developer can match the pool of talent the Linux community can bring to bear on a problem", and so "perhaps in the end the free-software culture will triumph not because cooperation is morally right or software 'hoarding' is morally wrong ... , but simply because the commercial world cannot win an evolutionary arms race with free-software communities that can put orders of magnitude more skilled time into a problem" (10). Realising the Fiction There remains the problem that even the members of such development communities must make a living somehow -- a need to which their efforts in the community not only don't contribute, but the pursuit of which even limits the time available for the community efforts. The apparent impossibility of reconciling these two goals has made the consensual collaborative approach appear little more than a utopian fiction so far, individual successes like Linux or (potentially) Mozilla notwithstanding. However, there are ways of making money from the communal work even if due to the abolition of copyright laws mere royalty payments are impossible -- as the example of Netscape's relation to the Mozilla project shows, the added benefits that corporate support can bring will still seem worth paying for, for many users. Similarly, while music and artwork may be freely available on the Net, many music fans will still prefer to get the entire CD package from a store rather than having to burn the CD and print the booklet themselves. The changes to producer/user relations suggested here do have severe implications for corporate and legal structures, however, and that is the central reason why particularly the major corporate intellectual property holders (or, hoarders) and their armies of lawyers are engaged in such a fierce defensive battle. Needless to say, the changeover from the still-powerful fiction of enforcible intellectual property copyrights to the new vision of open, consensual collaboration that gives credit for individual contributions, but has no concept of an exclusive ownership of ideas, will not take place overnight. Intellectual property will continue to be guarded, trade secrets will keep being kept, for some time yet, but -- just as is the case with the established practice of patenting particular ideas just so competitors can't use them, but without ever putting them to use in one's own work -- eventually such efforts will prove to be self-defeating. Shutting one's creative talents off in a quiet cathedral will come to be seen as less productive than engaging in the creative cooperation occuring in the global bazaar, and solitary directives of central executives will be replaced by consensual decisions of the community of producers and users. As Raymond points out, "this is not to say that individual vision and brilliance will no longer matter; rather, ... the cutting edge ... will belong to people who start from individual vision and brilliance, then amplify it through the effective construction of voluntary communities of interest" (10). Such communal approaches may to some seem much like communism, but this, too, is a misconception. In fact, in this new system there is much more exchange, much more give and take going on than in the traditional process of an exchange of money for product between user and producer -- only the currency has changed. "This explains much of the collective 'volunteer' work which fills the archives, newsgroups, and databases of the Internet. Its denizens are not working for 'nothing,' as is widely believed. Rather they are getting paid in something besides money. It is an economy which consists almost entirely of information" (Barlow). And with the removal of the many barriers to the free flow of information and obstacles to scientific and artistic development that traditional copyright has created, the progress of human endeavour itself is likely to be sped up. In the end, then, it all comes down to what fictions we choose to believe or reject. In the light of recent developments, and considering the evidence that suggests the viability, even superiority of alternative approaches, it is becoming increasingly hard to believe that traditional copyright can, and much less, should be sustained. Other than the few major copyright holders, few stand to gain from upholding these rights. On the other hand, were we to lift copyright restrictions and use the ideas and information thus made available freely in a cooperative, consensual, and most of all productive way, we all might profit. As various projects have shown, that fiction is already in the process of being realised. References Barlow, John Perry. "Selling Wine without Bottles: The Economy of Mind on the Global Net." 1993. 26 Jan. 1999 <www.eff.org/pub/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/idea_economy_article.php>. Gibson, William. Neuromancer. London: HarperCollins, 1984. Raymond, Eric S. "The Cathedral and the Bazaar." 1998. 26 Jan. 1999 <http://www.redhat.com/redhat/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar.php>. Taylor, Mike. "Djam Karet, Jeff Greinke, Tim Song Jones, Nick Peck, Kit Watkins." Gibraltar 5.12 (22 Apr. 1995). 10 Feb. 1999 <http://www.progrock.net/gibraltar/issues/Vol5.Iss12.htm>. "Who Is Mozilla.org?" Mozilla.org Website. 1998. 26 Jan. 1999 <http://www.mozilla.org/about.php>. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Axel Bruns. "The Fiction of Copyright: Towards a Consensual Use of Intellectual Property." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.1 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9902/copy.php>. Chicago style: Axel Bruns, "The Fiction of Copyright: Towards a Consensual Use of Intellectual Property," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 1 (1999), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9902/copy.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Axel Bruns. (1999) The fiction of copyright: towards a consensual use of intellectual property. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9902/copy.php> ([your date of access]).

Theoretical basis Resource-based view (RBV) theory (Barney, 1991; Barney and Mackey, 2016; Nagano, 2020) states that a firm’s tangible and intangible resources can represent a sustainable competitive advantage (SCA), a long-term competitive advantage that is extremely difficult to duplicate by another firm, when it meets four criteria (i.e. not imitable, are rare, valuable and not substitutable). In the context of this case, we believe there are three sources of SCA to be discussed using RBV – the major league soccer (MLS) team player roster, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to exploit this roster and the league’s single-entity structure: • MLS players: it has been widely acknowledged that a firm’s human resource talent, which includes professional soccer players (Omondi-Ochieng, 2019), can be a source of SCA. For example, from an RBV perspective, a player on the Los Angeles Galaxy roster: > cannot play for any other team in any other league at the same time (not imitable and are rare), > would already be a competitive player, as he is acquired to play in the highest professional league in the country (valuable) and > it would be almost impossible to find a clone player matching his exact talent characteristic (not substitutable) anywhere else. Of course, the roster mix of players must be managed by a capable coach who is able to exploit these resources and win championships (Szymanski et al., 2019). Therefore, it is the strategic human resource or talent management strategies of the professional soccer team roster that will enable a team to have the potential for an SCA (Maqueira et al., 2019). • Technology: technology can also be considered a source of SCA. However, this has been a source of contention. The argument is that technology is accessible to any firm that can afford to purchase it. Logically, any MLS team (or for that matter any professional soccer team) can acquire or build an AI system. For many observers, the only obvious constraint is financial resources. As we discuss in other parts of the case study, there is a fan-based assumption that what transpired in major league baseball (MLB) may repeat in the MLS. The movie Moneyball promoted the use of sabermetrics in baseball when making talent selection (as opposed to relying exclusively on scouts), which has now evolved into the norm of using technology-centered sports analytics across all MLB teams. In short, where is the advantage when every team uses technology for talent management? However, if that is the case, why are the MLB teams continuing to use AI and now the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL) and National Hockey League are following suit? We believe RBV theorists have already provided early insights: > “the exploitation of physical technology in a firm often involves the use of socially complex firm resources. Several firms may all possess the same physical technology, but only one of these firms may possess the social relations, cultural traditions, etc., to fully exploit this technology to implementing strategies…. and obtain a sustained competitive advantage from exploiting their physical technology more completely than other firms” (Barney, 1991, p. 110). • MLS League Single-Entity Structure: In contrast to other professional soccer leagues, the MLS has one distinct in-built edge – its ownership structure as a single entity, that is as one legal organization. All of the MLS teams are owned by the MLS, but with franchise operators. The centralization of operations provides the MLS with formidable economies of scale such as when investing in AI technologies for teams. Additionally, this ownership structure accords it leverage in negotiations for its inputs such as for player contracts. The MLS is the single employer of all its players, fully paying all salaries except those of the three marquees “designated players.” Collectively, this edge offers the MLS unparalleled fluidity and speed as a league when implementing changes, securing stakeholder buy-ins and adjusting for tailwinds. The “socially complex firm resources” is the unique talent composition of the professional soccer team and most critically its single entity structure. While every team can theoretically purchase an AI technology talent management system, its application entails use across 30 teams with a very different, complex and unique set of player talents. The MLS single-entity structure though is the resource that supplies the stability required for this human-machine (technology) symbioses to be fully accepted by stakeholders such as players and implemented with precision and speed across the entire league. So, there exists the potential for each MLS team (and the MLS as a league) to acquire SCA even when using “generic” AI technology, as long as other complex firm factors come into play. Research methodology This case relied on information that was widely reported within media, press interviews by MLS officials, announcements by various organizations, journal articles and publicly available information on MLS. All of the names and positions, in this case, are actual persons. Case overview/synopsis MLS started as a story of dreaming large and of quixotic adventure. Back in 1990, the founders of the MLS “sold” the league in exchange for the biggest prize in world soccer – the rights to host the 1994 Fédération Internationale de Football Association World Cup before they even wrote up the business plan. Today, the MLS is the highest-level professional men’s soccer league competition in the USA. That is a major achievement in just over 25-years, as the US hosts a large professional sports market. However, MLS has been unable to attract higher broadcasting value for its matches and break into the highest tier of international professional soccer. The key reason is that MLS matches are not deemed high quality content by broadcasters. To achieve higher quality matches requires many inputs such as soccer specific stadiums, growing the fan base, attracting key investors, league integrity and strong governance, all of which MLS has successfully achieved since its inception. However, attracting high quality playing talent is a critical input the MLS does not have because the league has repeatedly cautioned that it cannot afford them yet to ensure long-term financial sustainability. In fact, to guarantee this trade-off, the MLS is one of the only professional soccer leagues with an annual salary cap. So, the question is: how does MLS increase the quality of its matches (content) using relatively low cost (low quality) talent and still be able to demand higher broadcast revenues? One strategy is for the MLS to use AI playing technology to extract higher quality playing performance from its existing talent like other sports leagues have demonstrated, such as the NFL and NBA. To implement such a radical technology-centric strategy with its players requires the MLS to navigate associated issues such as human-machine symbioses, risking fan acceptance and even altering brand valuation. Complexity academic level The case is written and designed for a graduate-level (MBA) class or an upper-level undergraduate class in areas such as contemporary issues in management, human resource management, talent management, strategic management, sports management and sports marketing. The case is suitable for courses that discuss strategy, talent management, human resource management and brand strategy.

Holdcroft, Tina. Spy, Spy Again. Toronto: Annick Press, 2011. Print. Picking up this book, I was struck by the familiarity of the exuberant illustration style. A modest amount of research revealed that illustrator Tina Holdcroft has been an institution in Canadian publishing for decades. Her work on children’s publications like Owl and Chickadee, not to mention numerous non-fiction books for children, has made her a part of the visual language of Canadian children’s literature since the 1980s. Holdcroft clearly derives inspiration from bringing complex non-fiction and historical information to vivid, dynamic life. Her expertise with visual narrative allows her to communicate historical events within the span of a couple of pithily worded pages. With impressive economy, Holdcroft conveys the intricacies of ancient and modern global political machinations in memorable and hilariously wry vignettes. Holdcroft’s very personable and funny narrative tone allows the reader to take in a tremendous amount of detailed information while enjoying her adeptly designed interplay of text and illustration. It is almost too easy to overlook the rigorous research and incisive cleverness amidst all the colourful goofiness. The joviality might read as a bit flippant given the dire nature of the subject matter - bumbled attempts at spying seldom end happily - but it seems to be part of Holdcroft’s intent to emphasize the folly of human conflict and ambition. A happy confluence of talent, expertise and personal enthusiasm Spy, Spy Again is an engaging and rewarding experience for any reader and should definitely be considered for addition to any non-fiction library for young adults.Recommended: 3 out of 4 stars Reviewer: Matilda Roche Matilda spends her days lavishing attention on the University of Alberta’s metadata but children’s illustrated books, literature for young adults and graphic novels also make her heart sing. Her reviews benefit from the critical influence of a four year old daughter and a one year old son – both geniuses. Matilda’s super power is the ability to read comic books aloud.