Thèses sur le sujet « Biosemiotic »

This thesis traces the development of thought in the philosophical and other writings of three nineteenth-century thinkers, whose work exemplifies that century’s attempts to think beyond the divisions of culture from nature and to reconcile empirical science with metaphysical truth. Drawing on nineteenth-century debates on the origin of language and evolutionary theory, the thesis argues that the ideas of John Henry Newman, George Eliot and Lady Victoria Welby were cultural precursors to the biosemiotic thought of the second half of the twentieth century and beyond, specifically in the way in which these three thinkers sought to find a ‘common grammar’ between natural and human practices. While only Lady Welby communicated with the scientist, logician and father of modern semiotics, Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), all three contributed to the cultural sensibility that informed subsequent work in biology/ethology (Jakob von Uexküll (1864-1944), zoosemiotics (Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001), and the development of biosemiotics (Thomas A. Sebeok and Jesper Hoffmeyer (1943-present), Kalevi Kull (1952-present) among others. Each of these nineteenth-century writer’s intellectual development show strong parallels with the interdisciplinary endeavour of biosemiotics. The latter’s observation that biology is semiotics, its postulation of the continuity between the natural and cultural world through semiosis and evolutionary semiotic scaffolding its emphasis on the coordination of organic life processes on all levels, from simple cells to human beings, via semiotic interactions that depend on interpretation, communication and learning, and its consequent refusal of Cartesian divide, all find distinct resonances with these earlier thinkers. The thesis thus argues that Newman, Eliot and Welby all gave articulation to what the thesis identifies as the growth of a ‘biosemiotic imagination.’ It argues that Newman, Eliot and Lady Welby envisaged a unity, or a holistic understanding, of life based on a European developmental tradition of biology, philosophy and language which was familiar to Charles Darwin himself. This evolutionary ontology called forth a new epistemology grounded in a mode of unconscious creative inference (biosemiotic imagination) akin to Charles S. Peirce’s concept of abduction. Abduction is the logical operation which introduces a new idea and, as such, is the only source of adaptive and creative growth. For Peirce, it is closely tied to the growth of knowledge via the evolutionary action of sign relations. The thesis shows how these thinkers conceptualised their own version of what I suggest can be understood as this biosemiotic imagination and the implications this has for understanding creativity in nature and culture. For John Henry Newman, it was a common source of inspiration in religion and science. For George Eliot, it lay at the basis of any creative process, natural and cultural, between which it forged a link. Similarly to Eliot, Lady Victoria Welby saw abduction as a signifying process that subtends creativity both in nature and culture.

Il presente lavoro di ricerca vuole essere un contributo all’elaborazione di una teoria della modellizzazione estetica. L’idea di estetico che verrà sviluppata è solo in ultima istanza incentrata sulle opere d’arte, le quali saranno prese in considerazione nei termini di prodotti simbolici costituitivi della sfera culturale umana. Diversamente, nella prospettiva che vogliamo presentare, l’estetico sarebbe parte di un processo ecosistemico e di modellizzazione che coinvolge a vari livelli anche gli altri esseri viventi. L’estetico, ossia, sarebbe uno strumento utile alla creazione di specifici modelli che consentirebbero l’interfaccia con l’ambiente, dove l’obiettivo centrale del presente studio è quello di individuare il tipo di modelli che l’estetico permette di creare e il processo che conduce alla loro costituzione. La modellizzazione estetica, dunque, sarebbe tutt’altro che un comportamento accessorio o di sfondo, bensì uno strumento utile alla sopravvivenza che nell’essere umano trova la sua massima espressione nel simbolico quale capacità di produrre opere d’arte. Sotto questo aspetto, una teoria della modellizzazione estetica permette di superare quei binarismi che per secoli hanno impedito di studiare l’estetico in qualità di processo unitario e complesso. Il comportamento estetico sarebbe infatti una delle manifestazioni più evidenti della continuità tra cultura e natura, verbale e non verbale, soggetto e agente. Al fine di condurre un’indagine di questo tipo, ritengo utile utilizzare gli strumenti offerti dal campo di studi della biosemiotica, i quali permettono una visione biologica e relazionale dei fenomeni estetici. Gli obiettivi principali sono quelli di porre le basi per un ripensamento dell’estetica tradizionale e di riconsiderare il posizionamento dell’uomo all’interno della natura tramite l’analisi del comportamento estetico.

This thesis explores the conceptual origins of a biosemiotic understanding of the human as a consequence of the vital role of signs in the evolution of life. According to this challenge to definitions of man as the sole bearer of knowledge, human society and culture are not only characterised by the use and production of signs, human life and thought are the products of ongoing processes of semiosis. Along with Thomas Sebeok’s argument concerning animal architecture, examples from Modernist and Contemporary art are presented to introduce a new perspective on the natural and cultural significance of acts of inhabitation. By tracing its historical development in the nineteenth and twentieth century via the concept of the environment, this perspective on both human and non-human life is shown to contest those methods of modern science that are rooted in anthropocentrism The precedents of this perspective are then elaborated through an explication of the work of two of the forefathers of biosemiotics: the biologist Jakob von Uexküll and the philosopher Charles S. Peirce. Uexküll’s theory of the Umwelt demonstrated that in order to make sense of its surroundings each living organism must be situated within an integral world of signs. Peirce’s philosophical account of semiotics explained the evolution of signs in terms of processes of habit formation and the abductive power of thought. Together Uexküll and Peirce provide an impetus for reconsidering the metaphorical implications of aesthetics in terms of the semiotic inheritance of ecological systems. While having critically interrogated their differences especially with respect to their derivation from Kantian philosophy and German Idealism, in conclusion, the ideas of Peirce and Uexküll on the reciprocity of life and signs are shown to mutually contribute to a more advanced comprehension of human subjectivity.

This thesis examines the relation of systems theory to biosemiotics. To this end, it considers the claim that biosemiotics is an uneven development of systems theory. To do this, this thesis explores theories of 'modelling' and 'information' in biosemiotics from the enhanced point of view of systems theory. It will do so following the example set by Deely's 'archaeology of concepts' (1981). By means of the concept of 'isomorphism as structural similarity' (Bertalanffy 1945) the thesis argues that biosemiotics and cybernetics/systems theory share a systems thinking which is grounded in 'transdisciplinarity', 'history' and 'function'. This thesis also argues that such a common methodological perspective is an instance of historical continuity due primarily to biosemiotics' and systems theory's involvement with Tartu-Moscow semiotics. Subsequently, the thesis argues that biosemiotics' and cybernetics' systems thinking differ in their view of 'information'. It shows how biosemiotics broadly conceives information in terms of Peirce's notion of 'abduction', whereas cybernetics conceives information in terms of deduction. It also shows, as a consequence, how biosemiotics' modelling strategies are identifiable with logic as semiotics, while systems theory's modelling strategy is more closely identifiable with mathematical logic alone. Such a methodological difference is argued to be an 'uneven development' (Althusser 1965). The following thesis reveals much that biosemiotics has left unconsidered: the continuing relevance of systems theory, especially in relation to information and observership, and reveals this through the strength of the principle of abduction. Lastly, the thesis 'Biosemiotics as Systems Theory' provides the grounding for a new form of cultural analysis that supersedes the fallacies of semiology. It does so by proposing the following guidelines for the analysis of culture: substituting 'interpretation' with modelling, dispensing of 'representation' in favour of purely objective reality, and recasting 'motivation' in terms of cybersemiotic constraints.

This thesis contends that Nina Katchadourian's oeuvre can be read as subtly breaking down problematic assumptions about nature in Western thought. The second chapter draws on biosemiotics, which redefines life as semiosis, and trans-corporeality, which reconceptualizes the human body as inseparable from the environment, to show how Katchadourian's art routinely calls attention to non-human animal and material agencies. The third chapter demonstrates how Katchadourian's work implicitly reinforces Donna Haraway's idea of naturecultures, which contends that nature and culture are mutually implicated and inextricably intertwined, through a close reading of two of Katchadourian's pieces, Natural Crossdressing and Mended Spiderwebs #19 (Laundry Line). The final chapter compares the use of irony in two pieces that comment on Western animal classification--Chloe, by Katchadourian, and Scala Naturae, by Mark Dion--contending that Katchadourian's piece demonstrates what Bronislaw Szerszynski terms an "ironic ecology."

Los escarabajos de corteza son insectos unidos a las plantas leñosas. Estos escarabajos están encuadrados dentro de los curculiónidos en la subfamilia Scolytinae. Esta subfamilia está compuesta solamente por insectos fitófagos. Su ciclo vita es crítico en los ciclos de materia y energia de los bosques templados. Además estos insectos pueden afectar a los intereses ecómicos en las zonas donde se producen fenómenos de plaga, las cuales pueden acabar afectando a miles de kilómetros cuadrados de bosque. El objetivo general de esta tesis es realizar una aproximación al estudio de los escarabajos de corteza desde diferentes perspectivas. Los aspectos estudiados han permitido identificar si existen patrones de nicho diferenciados en las poblaciones de Tomicus destruens de la cuenca mediterránea, analizar las diferencias en la expresión de microRNAs en T. yunnanensis y T. destruens, caracterizar posibles serina proteasas en T. yunnanensis y analizar las redes ecológicas en las que participan los escarabajos de corteza. En el capítulo uno utilizamos linajes jerárquicos obtenidos mediante análisis cladístico anidado (NCA) de los haplotipos de ADN mitocondrial (ADNmt) del escarabajo de corteza Tomicus destruens, para modelar la distribución por máxima entropía, usando variables ambientales y de hospedador a lo largo de toda la cuenca mediterránea. Los modelos ecológicos desarrollados indican que las linajes de ADN mitocondrial orientales minoritarios de T. destruens difieren en su nicho ecológico potencial de acuerdo a su relación con variables climáticas extremas. El objetivo del segundo capítulo es identificar y caracterizar in silico microRNAs de Tomicus yunnanensis y validar su expresión en T. yunnanensis y T. destruens, mediante el uso de herramientas bioinfomáticas y la utilización de métodos moleculares mediante stem-loop pcrs. Siete miRNAs fueron validados en ambas especies por PCR cuantitativa en tiempo real (RT-qPCR), de los cuales mir-2c-3p y mir-4944-5p mostraron expresión en ambas especies. La expresión de tyu-mir-2c-3p fue mayor en T. destruens que en T. yunnanensis, tanto en machos como en hembras. Sin embargo, se observó la máxima expresión de tyu-mir-4944-5p en las hembras de T. destruens, seguido por los machos de T. yunnanensis y T. destruens. En el tercer cápitulo el objetivo principal de este estudio fue analizar in silico el transcriptoma del escarabajo de corteza T. yunnanensis mediante herramientas bioinformáticas e identificar posibles genes candidatos para la síntesis de serina proteasas. Entre las serina proteasas identificadas, cuatro proteasas semejantes a tripsinas y cinco proteasas semejantes a quimotripsinas fueron anotadas in silico. Estas enzimas fueron clasificadas dentro de la familia SA1 y mostraba todas las características de serina proteasas digestivas. El objetivo del cuarto capítulo es identificar las señales del nicho semiótico que afectan a la comunicación intraespecífica de los escarabajos de corteza y también la comunicación con otros organismos, utilizando el concepto de “eco-field” junto con la Teoría General de Recursos (GTR) con el fin de detectar los procesos de ampliación del nicho semiótico en escarabajos de corteza a lo largo de la matriz del paisaje forestal. Una nueva perspectiva in la ecología del paisaje es la aplicación del concepto Eco-field junto con la Teoría General de Recursos. En este artículo, nosotros describimos la existencia de un eco-field en los escarabajos de corteza como una configuración espacial con una específica portadora de significado para cada interacción de cada organismo-recurso. En esta tesis se han abordado aspectos filogeográficos y genómicos de los escarabajos de corteza para entender mejor sus relaciones evolutivas y su ecología. Además se ha realizado una aproximación biosemiótica para analizar las implicaciones de la comunicación de los escolítidos en las redes ecológicas.
Bark beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae) are insects linked to woody plants. This subfamily is exclusively composed of phytophagous species. In temperate forest ecosystems, their life cycle is critical in the matter and energy cycles of forests, but sometimes produce outbreaks episodes that come to disrupt the economic interests. The importance of these insects is that they are the first to arrive and complete their life cycle in susceptible hosts, facilitating the penetration of other wood-eating organisms like other insects (Hymenoptera and other Coleoptera) and especially fungi. Bark beetles affect mainly host trees with very little defence capability, either because they are weak by environmental conditions, injured or affected by fire. The overall objective of this thesis is to make an approach to the study of bark beetles from different perspectives. The study has allow to identify patterns of differentiated niche in populations of Tomicus destruens in the Mediterranean basin, to analyze differences in the expression of microRNAs in T. yunnanensis and T. destruens, to characterize possible serine proteases in T. yunnanensis and to analyze ecological networks where bark beetles participate. The objective of this chapter one was to identify some environmental factors of the ecological niche that affect the distribution of the mitochondrial lineages (mtLs) and the genetic diversity of T. destruens using nested clade analysis (NCA) together with the maximun entropy (MaxEnt) algorithm (NCA-MaxEnt).The ecological models developed indicate that minority eastern mtDNA lineages of T. destruens differ in their potential ecological niche according to their relation to extreme climatic variables. The main objective of the second chapter is to identify and characterize in silico microRNAs from Tomicus yunnanensis and to validate their expression in T. yunnanensis and T. destruens, using bioinformatics tools and molecular approaches with stem-loop pcrs.Seven miRNAs were validated in both species by quantitative real time PCR (RT-qPCR), of which mir-2c-3p and mir-4944-5p showed expression in both species. The expression of tyu-mir-2c-3p was higher in T. destruens than in T. yunnanensis, in both males and females. However, the highest expression of tyu-mir-4944-5p was observed in females of T. destruens, followed by males of T. yunnanensis and T. destruens. The main goal of the third chapter was to analyse in silico the transcriptome of the bark beetle T. yunnanensis by bioinformatic tools, and identify potential candidate genes for the synthesis of serine proteases. We intended to provide information on specific markers (digestion enzymes) to be used in future studies, aiming to develop new control strategies of this insect pest and its congeneric species.Among the serine proteases identified, four trypsin-like proteases and five chymotrypsin-like proteases were annotated in silico. These enzymes were classified into the SA1 family and showed all the characteristics of digestive serine proteases. The objective of this chapter was to identify the signals of the semiotic niche that affect intraspecific communication of bark beetles and with other organisms using the eco-field concept together with the General Theory of Resources (GTR) in order to detect processes of expansion of the semiotic niche in bark beetles along the entire landscape forestry matrix. A new perspective in landscape ecology is the application of the term Eco-Field together with the General Theory of Resources. In this paper, we describe the putative eco-field in bark beetles as a spatial configuration with a specific meaning-carrier for every organism-resource interaction. This thesis has addressed phylogeographic and genomic aspects of bark beetles to better understand their ecology and evolutionary relationships. In addition a biosemiotic approach was performed to analyse the implications of the communication of bark beetles in ecological networks.

The present PhD-thesis seeks new definitions of human subjectivity in an age of technoscience and a networked, globalized, Information Society. The perspective presented relates to Philosophy of Science, which includes the Human, the Natural, the Social and the Life Sciences. The project is directed at addressing, and aims to participate in, the further development of Philosophy of Science, or rather, the philosophy of knowing, which leaves a perspective broader than that of science. Methodologically, I combine readings of technoetic artworks, which I approach from a hermeneutical-semiotic perspective, with transdisciplinary research into existing theory concerning the human subject. These readings form my case studies. I keep a particular focus on holistic biophysics (Mae Wan Ho, James Oschman, Marko Bischof). Furthermore, Søren Brier's cybersemiotic theory of communication, cognition and consciousness, which combines a cybernetic-autopoietic and a Peircean semiotic perspective, plays a central role in the project. The project has three parts. Part one contextualizes the study within philosophy of science. It discusses relevant epistemologies, and places the case studies in an art categorical context. It further discusses the philosophical problems involved in writing an academic thesis in the form of a linear, argumentative, critical style, and how it affects the process of meaning making in a way that has consequences to my research. The second part consists of four case studies, each under an overall theme, which applies to the question of human subjectivity. Here I build the concept Extended Sentience, and the concept of an Ideal User. The Ideal User functions as a conceptual frame, which allows me to gradually add more elements to a theory of an altered human subject and knower. The third part presents new ontologies under three basic themes: Time and Relativity, The Life Cycles of Metaphors, and Logos Philosophy and Virtual Grids. These ontologies strongly affect ways of interpretation made in part one and two. Part Three allows more space to my subjective thought processes, which will take precedence over the literature applied. Thus, I, as a post-objective subject observer, will become more transparent. Finally, I will seek an overall conclusion to the project, which should clarify areas where it is evident that the human subject must be reconsidered at a pre-scientific level. It is my thesis that the foundation for human knowledge generation is changing drastically today, and that it has become crucial to reconsider a common understanding of what constitutes the human knower.

This study explores how Anglophone fiction from the mid-Victorian period to the outbreak of the First World War acted as an imaginative testing-ground for theories of the evolution of language. Debates about the past development and the future of language ranged beyond the scope of empirical data and into speculative narrative. Fiction offered to realize such narratives in detail, building imaginative worlds out of different theories of language evolution. In the process, it also often tested these theories, exposing their contradictions. The lack of clear boundaries between nature and culture in language studies of the period enabled fictions of language evolution to explore questions to which contemporary researchers have returned. To what extent is communication instinctive or conventional? How do social and biological factors interact in the production of meaning? The study traces two opposing tendencies of thought on language evolution, naming them language ‘progressivism’ and ‘vitalism’. Progressivism imagined speakers evolving away from involuntary, instinctive vocalizations to extert rational control over their discourse with mechanical precision. By contrast, language vitalism posited a mysterious, natural power in words which had weakened and fragmented with the rise of writing and industrial society. Certain genres of fiction lent themselves to exploration of these ideas, with utopian tales seeking to envision the end-goals of progressive theory. Representations of primitive language in imperial and prehistoric romances also promoted progressivism by depicting the instinctive, irrational speech from which ‘civilization’ was imagined as advancing away. Conversely, much historical and invasion fiction idealized a linguistic past when speech had expressed natural truth, and the authentic folk origins of its speakers. Both progressivism and vitalism were undermined through the late nineteenth century by developments in biology, which challenged claims of underlying stability in nature or purpose in change. Simultaneously, philologists increasingly argued that meaning was conventional, attacking models of semantic progress and degradation. In this context, a number of authors reconceptualized language in their fiction as a mixture of instinct and convention. These imaginative explorations of the borderlands between the social and biological in communication prefigured many of the concerns of twenty-first-century biosemiotics.

De l'ornement architectural à l'ornement liturgique, de l'ornement langagier à l'encadrement du tableau, de l'ornement musical au tatouage, les formes variés de l'ornement témoignent d'un champ d'application illimité qui couvre tous les domaines de l'art. Si chez Kant l'ornement offre un exemple typique de beauté libre, la philosophie et la théorie de l'art lui attribuent souvent un contenu moral ou symbolique l'associant tantôt à la convenance tantôt à la dégénérescence. En tant que forme primitive d'expression artistique il est rattaché aux arts premiers et à la production artisanale, aux antipodes de la véritable création artistique tout autant que du dessin industriel ou architectural. Sa dimension cosmique, d'autre part, fait que des artistes et des historiens le mettent au centre de leur conception de l'art, le considérant comme la manifestation principale du « vouloir artistique » ou une expression privilégiée de l'impulsion artistique vers l'abstraction. Si la spécificité de l'ornement consiste en son caractère accessoire qui lui assigne un statut ontologique particulier entre l'ergon et le parergon le rendant synonyme de « style », sa transversalité met en question les hiérarchies issues de la théorie de la mimesis et brouille les limites entre art et décoration, majeur et mineur, d'autant plus que les notions dérivées de l'« ornemental » ou du « décoratif » dépassent le domaine des arts appliqués et s'emploient pour designer la forme ou la fonction d’œuvres d'art. À ce titre l'étude des différents aspects de l'ornement et des réponses théoriques qu'il a suscitées, renouvelle la réflexion sur le statut de l'art et sa relation avec la vie
From architectural decoration to liturgical ornament, from rhetorical ornament to painting frames, from musical ornament to tattoo, the various forms of ornament testify to an unlimited scope that covers all artistic and cultural fields. Despite its being considered, from a kantian point of view, as an example of free beauty, philosophy and theory of art often attribute a moral or symbolic content to ornament, associating it to either convenience or degeneracy. As a primitive form of artistic expression, ornament is related to tribal art and to craft rather than true artistic creation or modern design. Its cosmic dimension, however, leads some artists and historians regard it as the basis for their conception of art, as the chief manifestation of the “will to art”, or as a primary expression of the artistic impulse that leads to abstraction. Since its specific character consists in that of an accessory, ornament receives an intermediate ontological status between the ergon and the parergon. Its transversality challenges the hierarchy of art forms and genres which is based on the theories of mimesis, and blurs the boundaries between art and decoration, high and low, since the derived terms of "ornamental" or "decorative" apply not only to decorative arts but also to the style and the function of art works. The study of the different aspects of ornament and of the theoretical responses it raised, contributes to regarding our understanding of the status of art and its relation to life

Cette thèse a pour objet la création d’un modèle théorique à destination de l’éthologie se présentant sous forme de grilles de lecture et de collection d’outils issus de la linguistique et de la sémiotique humaines. La finalité de ce modèle est de permettre l’étude zoosémiotique des émotions complexes au sein du règne animal. Il s’agit d’un travail pluridisciplinaire, interdisciplinaire et interthéoriciste, employant un corpus multimodal composé à la fois de textes théoriques linguistiques, d’études éthologiques et de supports multimédias, notamment des supports vidéo. Ce travail a été pensé dans un contexte d’absence de modèle théorique interdisciplinaire permettant l’étude de l’émotion animale, dans le but de permettre aux domaines des sciences du vivant et des sciences du langage de collaborer. Pour ce faire, il élabore tout d’abord un cadre théorique complet permettant une bonne entente des deux disciplines et revient sur tous les aspects essentiels (histoire, lexique, courant, idéologie, controverse). Par la suite, il présente le modèle théorique en explicitant sa construction et en donnant des exemples d’application. Dans la dernière partie la théorie est mise à l’épreuve par confrontation avec les données déjà existantes et approuvées par les éthologues. Cette partie permet de lister les forces et faiblesses du modèle, ainsi que les pistes de recherche, d’application et de réflexion qu’il ouvre au sujet de la sensibilité et de l’émotion animales
This PhD thesis’ object is the creation of a theoretical model for ethology. It is made of a collection of linguistics and human semiotics tools, organized into reading grids. This model’s aim is to allow the zoosemiotic study of complex emotions in animal kingdom. It’s a pluridisciplinary, interdisciplinary and intertheorist work with a multimodal corpus – including theoretical linguistics texts, ethology studies and multimedia contents, like videos. This work was created in a context of lack of interdisciplinary theoretical model. It was conceived with the aim of allow collaboration between life sciences and language sciences. To do so, we start first by building a complete theoretical frame for a good understanding between both disciplines. It goes over every main aspects – history, lexicology, schools, ideology, argument. Then, the theoretical model is introduced by explicating its construction and giving application examples. In the last part of the thesis, the theoretical model is tested by confrontation with existing and approved by ethologists datas. This part allows us to present strengths and weakness of the model – as well as lines of thought, research and application it opens

博士
國立臺灣大學
外國語文學研究所
93
Singapore has four official languages and they are Malay, Chinese, Tamil, and English with respect to each ethnic group. English is the working language and the other languages are considered mother tongues of each individual ethnic group. While examining the broad social, educational, political, cultural, and economic forces that shaped the writers’ destiny in order to provide background and contexts, this dissertation is concerned with how the notion of identity is constructed and maintained in the literary works. History, myth, and fable coalesce with sharp social commentary are evident in the literature after the attainment of nationhood. By placing the writers and their literary works in the sociological context and using the methodology proposed in this dissertation, I will present in a systematic way how individual entity or unity interacts in Singaporean literature. Firstly, it is observed that two (sometimes more than two) entities/unities from the same domain, for example, language, culture, ethnicity, and so on, are selected by the author in his literature. The entities/unities exist in the first-order and interact based on the first-order structural coupling. The “medium” is the domain in which the entity comes from in the first-order. Secondly, it is observed that interactions generally do not stop at first-order. The first-order coupling is the initial state to start off a successive reaction. The second-order structural coupling then follows, in which the triggering or interfering entity acts upon the coupled structure. This triggering or interfering entity is labeled “environment” to indicate an external force triggering an internal response of the couple. The third-order coupling is the structural coupling of the unities with its medium. In this case, the social domain is where all entities are immersed. The complex web of relationships created by the superposition of political, economic, historical, and cultural relation in the social domain are reflected in the literary works to produce a distinctive Singaporean spectrum.

碩士
實踐大學
時尚與媒體設計研究所
95
This thesis tries to look into the various theories and techniques exercised by the art-creator, when she is faced with love and sorrow in life, from the forming of creative ideas to the realization of the final products. The artist centers her discovery around Life itself, the creative media on clothes, and contents on the interactions between flows of personal thoughts and Nature’s various life forms. Materials chosen are focused on recycled clothes, green fibers from recycled PET bottles, and natural cambric fibers, to express one's respect and introspection toward Nature’s equilibrium. The body of this thesis will discuss the following three parts: The first part is the reflection and interpretation of artist’s creative theories. This study treats Life as its principle subject. The form of vortex, an icon of life constructing, symbolizes life, ever growing, ever reviving. In this work the artist will try to analyze, to perceive, and to interpret such qualities and to put in use on designing clothes. The second part is to experiment with the vortex form, and to convert it into creation. The artist forms her ideas, and uses the icon of life- vortex to experiment with forms, and treats recycled materials in various ways to re-organize them as creative medias. In this, the artist explores the concepts of her work. The third part, titled “the Settling of Life and the Rising of Spirits” disserts the relationship between life and creating, and the meanings the artist’s work conveys. The use of vortex transforms basic signatures of life forms into the drive and source of her creation. As the body of creation sets on death and rebirth, on reincarnation, the true object drawn from the physical form of vortex lies in the abstract imago of life. When we ponder on the essence of life or sense the infinite vitality of Nature, the everlasting vitality stretching from death to rebirth, our thoughts on life changes. Only when we act to wash away the thought of death, to draw ourselves away from pain and sorrow, can we be re-born, and so our lives can anew. Life is the truest being. We constantly wonder and reflect upon our surroundings, and cars for life with actions .The artist uses the form of vortex and the simplest sewing and patching, to present her inner thoughts and the interaction with Nature; thus create a tranquil atmosphere, distancing her work from the physical world, and adds more space for imagination to life.

abstract: This dissertation is both creative and scholarly, engaging in the technique of "narrative scholarship," an increasingly accepted technique within the field of ecocriticism. The project is framed by my experiences with Spanish and Latino actors as well as activists involved with the 15-M movement in and around Madrid. It takes a "material ecocritical" approach, which is to say that it treats minds, spirits and language as necessarily "bodied" entities, and creates an absolute union between beings and the matter that constructs them as well as their habitat. I apply the lens of Jesper Hoffmeyer's Biosemiotics, which claims that life is at its most essential levels a communicative process. In other words, I will explore how "all matter is 'storied' matter," as well as how the "semiosphere," which is an important concept in biosmiotics, signaling a semiotic environment that predicts and defines all biological bodies/life, the human, the plant and the animal as beings who are made of and involved in semiotic activity, can serve as a basis for union amongst all bodies and provide a model of cooperation rooted in "storytelling." My project aims to embody what Wendy Wheeler describes as ecocriticism's, "syntheses between the sciences and the humanities" It is my strong opinion that creative writing has the power to offer the general public insight into the reasons why new research in biosemiotics is so important to the work that activists are doing to raise awareness of how humans can live responsibly on the only planet that is our home. This will help readers of creative writing and cultural studies scholars understand why they ought to embrace science, especially in literary and cultural studies, as a path to better understanding of the role of the humanities in an increasingly scientifically oriented world.
Dissertation/Thesis
Doctoral Dissertation English 2016

Multicomponent signals are complex stimuli directed to receptors of only single modality. Colourful ornaments of animals are multicomponent signals. In this thesis I present results of studies on the origin of coloration in turtles and squamate reptiles together with notes on relativistic view of the functionality of animal coloration. The results show that turtle coloration, which have been studied only marginally until now, is shaped by sexual selection. It is shown that turtles share mechanisms of coloration by vertical organization of different pigment cell types together with squamate reptiles. Turtles also produce colour by organization of collagen fibres which share trait with birds and mammals. Mechanisms of body coloration differ dramatically between closely related turtle species studied even though the individual constituting components are shared among these species. On the example of polymorphic lizards, it is shown that qualitative categorical difference between groups of individuals of the same population are maintained based on quantitative changes in pigment contents regulated by ancient loci shared by different species. The turtles and reptiles are valuable source of our knowledge on the evolution of multicomponent visual signalling due to their intriguing composition of skin....

We are living in the information age and this has had an effect on both science and theology. Our understanding of the fundamental role of information has increased significantly. One can even say that information has become an overarching metaphor in the world of science. This dissertation gives an overview of the impact of the information-based scientific world-view on the dialogue between science and theology. The study investigates the metaphorical use of information concepts to secure a better understanding of God's action in the world and the role that information plays in the processes of life. The focus is on the role of biological information, and its relation to divine action is investigated. The scientific importance of information and the possible impact of information concepts on the science and theology dialogue of the future are discussed.
Systematic Theology & Theological Ethics
M. Th.(Systematic Theology)

[IT] Il presente lavoro analizza la produzione letteraria di Luigi Meneghello attraverso il filtro delle teorie ecocritiche, guardando soprattutto ai rapporti fra letteratura e ambiente fisico, impegno civile ed emergenza ambientale, fino ad analizzare il ruolo rivestito dal regno animale all’interno del macrotesto. Stante una simile prospettiva, la visione ecologica dell’autore emerge sotto un triplice aspetto: concezione del testo quale ‘ecosistema’, caratterizzato da una concezione organicistica della scrittura e della lingua; ecologia delle cose, in base alle teorie del Nuovo Materialismo e del Material Ecocriticism; critica all’antropocentrismo e ridefinizione del rapporto tra Homo Sapiens e animali non umani. [EN] This study proposes an ecocritical analysis of Luigi Meneghello’s literary production, looking at the relationships between text and physical environment; engagement and ecological crisis; animal world and tropological aspect. Starting from this analysis, the author’s ecological view stands up in several aspects: the ‘text’ as ‘ecosystem’, characterized by an organicistic view of the writing process; the ecological crisis and pollution, resulting in a development of environmental ethic; ecology of things, according to the perspective of the Material Ecocriticism; criticism of the anthropocentric view and redefinition of the human-animal relationship.

Pokorný, V., To think from psychedelic experiences. Transdisciplinary interpretation. Diseration Thesis, Departement of General Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities, Charles University Prague, 2016 Abstract: The goal of this text is to think from and according to psychedelic experiences. To think from psychededic experiences means to introduce a transdisciplinary model of psychedelic domain. This model is based on autoethnographic, cognitive, phenomenological and psychopharmacological types of analysis. These analyses allow to demonstrate: 1) place of psychedelics in contemporary globalised czech society; 2) possible heuristic (theoretical and experiemental) value of psychedelic experience for understanding human situation. This text interprets psychedelic experience as a process of deteritorialization and reteritorialization that occurs on different, intertwinned levels of our experience, and, thus, it is a contribution to explication of a philosophical concept of intertwinning. Keywords: psychedelic experience, transdisciplinarity, autoethnography, cognitive anthropology, anthropology of experience, enactivism, phenomenology, embodiment, analogy, intertwinning