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(1 - 14 of 14)
- Title
- LEVINAS ON THE 'ORIGIN' OF JUSTICE: KANT, HEIDEGGER, AND A COMMUNAL STRUCTURE OF DIFFERENCE.
- Creator
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Tomasello, Olga, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The way we understand community fundamentally structures the way we approach justice. In opposition to totalizing structures of justice founded upon an ontological conception of community, Emmanuel Levinas conceives the possibility of a political or social structure of difference. I argue that the conceptions of community presented by Kant and Heidegger, either as a harmonious, unified being in common, or as a common-identity disclosed beneath the ontological horizon of being-with,...
Show moreThe way we understand community fundamentally structures the way we approach justice. In opposition to totalizing structures of justice founded upon an ontological conception of community, Emmanuel Levinas conceives the possibility of a political or social structure of difference. I argue that the conceptions of community presented by Kant and Heidegger, either as a harmonious, unified being in common, or as a common-identity disclosed beneath the ontological horizon of being-with, necessarily leads to violence. This violence is reflected in the forms of justice instantiated by these philosophies, which privilege the 'light' of the universal over the particularity of individuals in the face-to-face encounter, ultimately corrupting and nullifying one's anarchic moral responsibility for the Other. The intent of this thesis is to argue that justice can only remain just if it is seen, not on the basis of a communal 'light' that absorbs, integrates, and incorporates the Other as an element of a system, but as founded on the anarchic responsibility of the one-for-the-Other. Justice, I will show, cannot be seen as an aim of a community—complete and self-sufficient—in achieving an end, but as a rupture, a disturbance, as a call made among a multitude of particular, unique Others by which ethics (the face-to-face) is fundamental.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2014
- Identifier
- CFH0004630, ucf:45309
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004630
- Title
- PAUL VERHOEVEN, MEDIA MANIPULATION, AND HYPER-REALITY.
- Creator
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Malchiodi, Emmanuel, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Dutch director Paul Verhoeven is a polarizing figure. Although many of his American made films have received considerable praise and financial success, he has been lambasted on countless occasions for his gratuitous use of sex, violence, and contentious symbolism - 1995s Showgirls was overwhelmingly dubbed the worst film of all time and 1997s Starship Troopers earned him a reputation as a fascist. Regardless of the controversy surrounding him, his science fiction films are a move beyond the...
Show moreDutch director Paul Verhoeven is a polarizing figure. Although many of his American made films have received considerable praise and financial success, he has been lambasted on countless occasions for his gratuitous use of sex, violence, and contentious symbolism - 1995s Showgirls was overwhelmingly dubbed the worst film of all time and 1997s Starship Troopers earned him a reputation as a fascist. Regardless of the controversy surrounding him, his science fiction films are a move beyond the conventions of the big blockbuster science fiction films of the 1980s (E.T. and the Star Wars trilogy are prime examples), revealing a deeper exploration of both sociopolitical issues and the human condition. Much like the novels of Philip K. Dick (and Verhoeven's 1990 film Total Recall - an adaptation of a Dick short story), Verhoeven's science fiction work explores worlds where paranoia is a constant and determining whether an individual maintains any liberty is regularly questionable. In this thesis I am basically exploring issues regarding power. Although I barely bring up the term power in it, I feel it is central. Power is an ambiguous term; are we discussing physical power, state power, objective power, subjective power, or any of the other possible manifestations of the word? The original Anglo-French version of power means to be able,asking whether it is possible for one to do something. In relation to Verhoeven's science fiction work each demonstrates the limitations placed upon an individual's autonomy, asking are the protagonists capable of independent agency or rather just environmental constructs reflecting the myriad influences surrounding them. Does the individual really matter in the post-modern world, brimming with countless signs and signifiers? My main objective in this writing is to demonstrate how this happens in Verhoeven's films, exploring his central themes and subtext and doing what science fiction does: hold a mirror up to the contemporary world and critique it, asking whether our species' current trajectory is beneficial or hazardous.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFH0003844, ucf:44697
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0003844
- Title
- ART AS A QUESTIONING PROCESS.
- Creator
-
Perez, Elizabeth, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
The topic of this thesis is, broadly, the crisis of postmodernity and the solution that French rhetorician, Michel Meyer, presents in his theory "problematology." Meyer looks to relocate the focus of philosophical attention on the question as opposed to the answer. Meyer calls preoccupation with answers "propositionalism." Propositionalism can be likened to the looming scientism that threatens philosophy in general. Meyer shows, through an examination of questioning, how philosophy can be...
Show moreThe topic of this thesis is, broadly, the crisis of postmodernity and the solution that French rhetorician, Michel Meyer, presents in his theory "problematology." Meyer looks to relocate the focus of philosophical attention on the question as opposed to the answer. Meyer calls preoccupation with answers "propositionalism." Propositionalism can be likened to the looming scientism that threatens philosophy in general. Meyer shows, through an examination of questioning, how philosophy can be rescued from obsolescence without being detracted to scientism. Although Meyer's philosophy is promising, it could not be considered thorough if it did not address art. Using Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's definition of art as externalized experience, this thesis will explore whether or not Meyer has examined the important relationship between art and philosophy. Through analysis of his three main books in English along with multiple essays, this thesis shows that, although Meyer did not examine art to a great extent, his philosophy contains underlying themes that correspond to the art world. If Meyer's philosophy is shown to be thorough enough in every respect, it could serve as a new starting point for thought. Meyer's philosophy has the potential to pioneer a new paradigm of thought that has not been previously explored.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2012
- Identifier
- CFH0004288, ucf:44901
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFH0004288
- Title
- Mapping Addiction: A Digital Psychogeographic Approach to America's Addiction Epidemic.
- Creator
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Benjamin, Clayton, Mauer, Barry, Applen, JD, Janz, Bruce, Oleksiak, Timothy, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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iiiABSTRACTFocusing on policy consultation, my dissertation consults on the current US addiction epidemic and aims to answer, (")What is our disposition to addiction?(") Borrowing and clarifying Ulmer's MEmorial method, as established in his text Electronic Monuments, the dissertation combines the ancient Greek practice of theoria, Deleuzian theory, and psychogeographic counter-mapping methods to trace ways in which ideological apparatuses construct addiction. The aim of the dissertation is...
Show moreiiiABSTRACTFocusing on policy consultation, my dissertation consults on the current US addiction epidemic and aims to answer, (")What is our disposition to addiction?(") Borrowing and clarifying Ulmer's MEmorial method, as established in his text Electronic Monuments, the dissertation combines the ancient Greek practice of theoria, Deleuzian theory, and psychogeographic counter-mapping methods to trace ways in which ideological apparatuses construct addiction. The aim of the dissertation is to reveal an abject value by constructing MEmorials which provide space for individuals to mourn loss and see their relation to that loss. Through mourning, individuals strengthen their ties to other community members and new policy can be made possible. Currently there is not an AIDS-like quilt for the victims of the addiction epidemic; therefore, the dissertation proposes the construction of a physical and electronic MEmorial to addiction. By conducting a psychogeography, a method directly tied to logic and reasoning appropriate to electracy, I traced the abject value of desire as it is constructed through the assemblages that construct the values of the Bradenton, FL community. The psychogeography revealed a categorical image (")DE(") which I traced through the ideological state apparatuses working their effects on Bradenton, FL. The image also connects to Bradenton, FL to the larger National War on Drugs through the star emblem of John Wayne. Concluding from the method, I argue to create a MEmorial to addiction at the John Wayne Birthplace Museum to reveal the horror of our communal desires and call for national drug policy reform.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007785, ucf:52358
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007785
- Title
- A Sense of Place: Ethnographic Reflection on Two Palestinian Life Histories.
- Creator
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Barrett, Patrick, Howard, Rosalyn, Matejowsky, Ty, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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There is a labyrinth of complex social connections between people and places that deserves careful anthropological reflection. People do not simply occupy places; they experience them, infusing them with life and social meaning. Basso (1996:53) argues that ethnography has reported little about the complex ways in which people are (")alive to the world around them.(") Anthropology is currently experiencing a resurging emphasis on place that seeks to account for its remarkably social features....
Show moreThere is a labyrinth of complex social connections between people and places that deserves careful anthropological reflection. People do not simply occupy places; they experience them, infusing them with life and social meaning. Basso (1996:53) argues that ethnography has reported little about the complex ways in which people are (")alive to the world around them.(") Anthropology is currently experiencing a resurging emphasis on place that seeks to account for its remarkably social features. Rather than primarily thinking about place when determining a location for fieldwork, emerging anthropological reflection shows the discipline is repositioning itself to explore the complex and often fantastic ways people experience, conceptualize, and confer meaning to their natural surroundings. In anthropology, the phrase (")sense of place(") captures these ideas. The phenomenological approach has emerged as the theoretical centerpiece for this effort, promising to open extraordinary new pathways for qualitative exploration.This thesis uses the life history methodology to explore how two female Palestinian immigrants to Central Florida experience and confer meaning to their ancestral homeland and place of birth. Data collected through a series of life history interviews highlight the texture of Palestinian senses of place, including the presence of what I describe as an eschatological sense of place.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004469, ucf:49312
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004469
- Title
- Disciplinary Mythologies: A Rhetorical-Cultural Analysis of Performance Enhancement Technologies in Sports.
- Creator
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Lamothe, John, Scott, Blake, Janz, Bruce, Campbell, James, Oliveira, Leonardo, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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In sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the...
Show moreIn sports discourse, the relationship between athletics and technology is often paradoxical. On the one hand, modern sports rely on technology at every level, from training and tracking of players to the equipment and apparel used by athletes to the game strategies and playing fields themselves. Nearly all of these technologies are intended to increase athletic performance on some level. And yet, certain performance enhancement technologies can be criticized for being antithetical to the spirit of sports, which is framed as being a strictly natural and pure human endeavor. Using a rhetorical-cultural methodological approach, popular sports discourse is analyzed to investigate how arguments in contested spaces between sports and technologies get (re)negotiated and (re)articulated to fit within a sports social language that emphasizes (")pure(") and (")natural(") ideals of sport. This often results in a dichotomy where the sport/technology relationship is either black boxed, thus being subsumed in the sport social language and becoming transparent and the relationships unarticulated, or the technology is regulated out of the sport through rules and bans. The reason for this articulation is attributed in large part to the deep humanism embedded in the sport social language. How a shift to a posthuman perspective would effect sports discourse is explored. These conclusions about underlying values in sports discourse lead to the formation of a new theoretical framework called disciplinary mythologies. Building off of Foucault's disciplinary power, Scott's disciplinary rhetorics, and Barthe's mythologies, disciplinary mythologies are discrete units of persuasion that both construct and constitute claims by drawing upon layered narratives and shifting associations that lose their context when entering the realm of myth. Two specific disciplinary mythologies are discussed(-)the level-playing-field topos and the nostalgia enthymeme(-)and it is shown how sports discourse often draws upon them to shape arguments and actions.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005970, ucf:50773
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005970
- Title
- Neurophenomenological Methods: Experiences of Earth and Space in Simulation.
- Creator
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Morrow, Patricia, Reinerman, Lauren, Cash, Mason, Janz, Bruce, Gallagher, Shaun, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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The present study explores the nature and structure of spiritual and aesthetic experiences through the interdisciplinary application of neurophenomenology (NP). This approach merges aspects of psychology, neurophysiology, and phenomenology into a unified methodology. The study is nested within a larger project, Space, Science, and Spirituality, and as such, it carries a common goal to use simulation to evoke spiritual and aesthetic responses similar to those expressed by astronauts and...
Show moreThe present study explores the nature and structure of spiritual and aesthetic experiences through the interdisciplinary application of neurophenomenology (NP). This approach merges aspects of psychology, neurophysiology, and phenomenology into a unified methodology. The study is nested within a larger project, Space, Science, and Spirituality, and as such, it carries a common goal to use simulation to evoke spiritual and aesthetic responses similar to those expressed by astronauts and cosmonauts. Careful analysis of previous work in NP provided methodological (")lessons learned("), which guided the experimental design, execution, and analysis of the present study. The data collected provides support for experience as a phenomenon that can be studied through empirical means. Further, the articulation of spiritual and aesthetic experiences akin to astronaut experiences corresponds to specific neurological and psychological indicators. Among those indicators are differences in EEG measures during simulation time relative to expressions of spiritual experience following the simulation and changes in visual processing across theta, alpha, and beta signals as correlated with self-identification. These findings support an embodied theory of experience that incorporates memory, executive function, perception, and consciousness. In addition to its academic contribution, this research holds implications for commercial space flight, long-term space missions, post-traumatic stress disorder therapies, and the entertainment industry.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2013
- Identifier
- CFE0005035, ucf:50018
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005035
- Title
- Acoustic Ecology and Sound Mapping the University of Central Florida Main Campus.
- Creator
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Clarke, Robert, Beever, Jonathan, French, Scot, Janz, Bruce, Pijanowski, Bryan, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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(")Acoustic Ecology and Sound Mapping the University of Central Florida Main Campus(") explores the intersection of place and space, sound studies and acoustic ecology, visualization, and archives. The end result consists of a collection of (")soundwalk(") and stationary recordings conducted from 2016-2019 at the University of Central Florida (UCF) main campus in Orlando presented as an online Sound Map. This archive previously did not exist and provides a snapshot of the various sounds heard...
Show more(")Acoustic Ecology and Sound Mapping the University of Central Florida Main Campus(") explores the intersection of place and space, sound studies and acoustic ecology, visualization, and archives. The end result consists of a collection of (")soundwalk(") and stationary recordings conducted from 2016-2019 at the University of Central Florida (UCF) main campus in Orlando presented as an online Sound Map. This archive previously did not exist and provides a snapshot of the various sounds heard throughout the campus as well as a starting point and context for future research into this still-emerging field of acoustic ecology and sound studies. While the individual recordings help to provide a sense of place at the university, they also represent a benchmark from a public history standpoint to interpret sonic change over time.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007793, ucf:52344
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007793
- Title
- Measuring Player Perceptions of Freedom and Control in Modded and Unmodded Versions of Bethesda's Skyrim: A Qualitative Play Study.
- Creator
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Kretzschmar, Mark, Salter, Anastasia, Stanfill, Mel, Janz, Bruce, Postigo, Hector, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This interdisciplinary dissertation explores perceptions of control in modded and unmodded versions of Bethesda's sandbox video game Skyrim. Sandbox games are known for greater choice options that suggest greater perceptions of control for gamers. Sandbox games also generally encourage the use of user-generated creations called modifications (mods) that users can download to personalize their games. While we need philosophy to understand and define control as a concept, we also need...
Show moreThis interdisciplinary dissertation explores perceptions of control in modded and unmodded versions of Bethesda's sandbox video game Skyrim. Sandbox games are known for greater choice options that suggest greater perceptions of control for gamers. Sandbox games also generally encourage the use of user-generated creations called modifications (mods) that users can download to personalize their games. While we need philosophy to understand and define control as a concept, we also need psychology to understand how users perceive control in media studies. At present, qualitative academic research that measures gamer perceptions of control is non-existent as is research on how users articulate their experiences with mods. Interviews were conducted with twenty-seven individuals who identified as gamers to analyze these perceptions of control in a game like Skyrim. The first chapter is introductory and outlines key terms for the dissertation as well as the play study's methodology. The second chapter examines philosophical and psychological perceptions of control that correspond with negative freedom (freedom from) and positive freedom (freedom to). While no game can promise radical free will because they have been programmed in advance, the information here may be used to demonstrate how perceptions of control might influence game design. The third chapter continues this exploration of perceived control through genre analysis, revealing the relationship between greater perceptions of control and mod support in sandbox video games. The fourth chapter presents the first two findings from the play study that demonstrate how mods influence player perceptions of control. The fifth chapter reveals how gamers of the play study discuss their perceptions of control video games in their own words with an emphasis on positive and negative freedom and generic conventions. The final chapter provides challenges for game design and scholarly qualitative analysis for future research based on findings in the play study.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2019
- Identifier
- CFE0007479, ucf:52673
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007479
- Title
- The Visual Divide: Islam vs. The West, Image Peception in Cross-Cultural Contexts.
- Creator
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Akil, Hatem, Mauer, Barry, Scott, John, Gleyzon, Francois-Xavier, Janz, Bruce, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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Do two people, coming from different cultural backgrounds, see the same image the same way? Do we employ technologies of seeing that embed visuality within relentless cultural and ideological frames? And, if so, when does visual difference become a tool for inclusion and exclusion? When does it become an instrument of war? I argue that we're always implicated in visuality as a form of confirmation bias, and that what we see is shaped by preexisting socio-ideological frames that can only be...
Show moreDo two people, coming from different cultural backgrounds, see the same image the same way? Do we employ technologies of seeing that embed visuality within relentless cultural and ideological frames? And, if so, when does visual difference become a tool for inclusion and exclusion? When does it become an instrument of war? I argue that we're always implicated in visuality as a form of confirmation bias, and that what we see is shaped by preexisting socio-ideological frames that can only be liberated through an active and critical relationship with the image. The image itself, albeit ubiquitous, is never unimplicated - at once violated and violating; with both its creator and its perceiver self-positioned as its ultimate subject.I follow a trace of the image within the context of a supposed Islam versus the West dichotomy; its construction, instrumentalization, betrayals, and incriminations. This trace sometimes forks into multiple paths, and at times loops unto itself, but eventually moves towards a traversal of a visual divide. I apply the trace as my methodology in the sense suggested by Derrida, but also as a technology for finding my way into and out of an epistemological labyrinth.The Visual Divide comprises five chapters: Chapter One presents some of the major themes of this work while attempting a theoretical account of image perception within philosophical and cross-cultural settings. I use this account to understand and undermine contemporary rhetoric (as in the works of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis) that seems intent on theorizing a supposed cultural and historical dichotomies between Islam and the West.In Chapter Two, I account for slogan chants heard at Tahrir Square during the January 25 Egyptian revolution as tools to discovering a mix of technology, language and revolution that could be characterized as hybrid, plural and present at the center of which lies the human body as subject to public peril. Chapter Three analyzes a state of visual divide where photographic evidence is posited against ethnographic reality as found in postcards of nude and semi-nude Algerian Muslim women in the 19th century. I connect this state to a chain of visual oppositions that place Western superiority as its subject and which continues to our present day with the Abu Ghraib photographs and the Mohammed cartoons, etc. Chapter Four deploys the image of Mohamed al-Durra, a 3rd grader who was shot dead, on video, at a crossroads in Gaza, and the ensuing attempts to reinterpret, recreate, falsify and litigate the meaning of the video images of his death in order to propagate certain political doxa. I relate the violence against the image, by the image, and despite the image, to a state of pure war that is steeped in visuality, and which transforms the act of seeing into an act of targeting.In Chapter Five, I integrate the concept of visuality with that of the human body under peril in order to identify conditions that lead to comparative suffering or a division that views humanity as something other than unitary and of equal value. I connect the figures of der Muselmann, Shylock, Othello, the suicide bomber, and others to subvert a narrative that claims that one's suffering is deeper than another's, or that life could be valued differently depending on the place of your birth, the color of your skin, or the thickness of your accent.Finally, in the Epilogue: Tabbouleh Deterritorialized, I look at the interconnected states of perception and remembering within diasporic contexts. Cultural identity (invoked by an encounter with tabbouleh on a restaurant menu in Orlando) is both questioned and transformed and becomes the subject of perception and negotiation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2011
- Identifier
- CFE0004084, ucf:49144
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0004084
- Title
- Critical Programming: Toward a Philosophy of Computing.
- Creator
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Bork, John, Janz, Bruce, Grajeda, Anthony, McDaniel, Rudy, Hughes, Charles, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Beliefs about the relationship between human beings and computing machines and their destinies have alternated from heroic counterparts to conspirators of automated genocide, from apocalyptic extinction events to evolutionary cyborg convergences. Many fear that people are losing key intellectual and social abilities as tasks are offloaded to the everywhere of the built environment, which is developing a mind of its own. If digital technologies have contributed to forming a dumbest generation...
Show moreBeliefs about the relationship between human beings and computing machines and their destinies have alternated from heroic counterparts to conspirators of automated genocide, from apocalyptic extinction events to evolutionary cyborg convergences. Many fear that people are losing key intellectual and social abilities as tasks are offloaded to the everywhere of the built environment, which is developing a mind of its own. If digital technologies have contributed to forming a dumbest generation and ushering in a robotic moment, we all have a stake in addressing this collective intelligence problem. While digital humanities continue to flourish and introduce new uses for computer technologies, the basic modes of philosophical inquiry remain in the grip of print media, and default philosophies of computing prevail, or experimental ones propagate false hopes. I cast this as-is situation as the post-postmodern network dividual cyborg, recognizing that the rational enlightenment of modernism and regressive subjectivity of postmodernism now operate in an empire of extended mind cybernetics combined with techno-capitalist networks forming societies of control.Recent critical theorists identify a justificatory scheme foregrounding participation in projects, valorizing social network linkages over heroic individualism, and commending flexibility and adaptability through life long learning over stable career paths. It seems to reify one possible, contingent configuration of global capitalism as if it was the reflection of a deterministic evolution of commingled technogenesis and synaptogenesis. To counter this trend I offer a theoretical framework to focus on the phenomenology of software and code, joining social critiques with textuality and media studies, the former proposing that theory be done through practice, and the latter seeking to understand their schematism of perceptibility by taking into account engineering techniques like time axis manipulation. The social construction of technology makes additional theoretical contributions dispelling closed world, deterministic historical narratives and requiring voices be given to the engineers and technologists that best know their subject area. This theoretical slate has been recently deployed to produce rich histories of computing, networking, and software, inform the nascent disciplines of software studies and code studies, as well as guide ethnographers of software development communities.I call my syncretism of these approaches the procedural rhetoric of diachrony in synchrony, recognizing that multiple explanatory layers operating in their individual temporal and physical orders of magnitude simultaneously undergird post-postmodern network phenomena. Its touchstone is that the human-machine situation is best contemplated by doing, which as a methodology for digital humanities research I call critical programming. Philosophers of computing explore working code places by designing, coding, and executing complex software projects as an integral part of their intellectual activity, reflecting on how developing theoretical understanding necessitates iterative development of code as it does other texts, and how resolving coding dilemmas may clarify or modify provisional theories as our minds struggle to intuit the alien temporalities of machine processes.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2015
- Identifier
- CFE0005928, ucf:50843
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0005928
- Title
- School Has a Bad Storyline: Gamification in Educational Environments.
- Creator
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Pynn, Irene, Brenckle, Martha, Janz, Bruce, Underberg-Goode, Natalie, Hopp, Carolyn, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
School often has low engagement and frustrating or absent options for the kind of agency the Federal Government's 2016 National Education Technology Plan now recommends educators include in their curriculum. Video games offer opportunities for people to participate in critical problem solving through creative projects. From balancing character statistics, to collaborating with other players, to making ethical and tactical decisions that can change the outcome of the story, successful games...
Show moreSchool often has low engagement and frustrating or absent options for the kind of agency the Federal Government's 2016 National Education Technology Plan now recommends educators include in their curriculum. Video games offer opportunities for people to participate in critical problem solving through creative projects. From balancing character statistics, to collaborating with other players, to making ethical and tactical decisions that can change the outcome of the story, successful games draw on the player's interest in learning and analyzing numbers, locations, visual clues, narrative elements, people, and more. One useful example may be found in visual novels (VNs), a medium that pulls from narrative structures found in Choose Your Own Adventure Novels. These interactive narratives are a largely untapped resource (for educational uses) of guided critical thinking. My ongoing research explores the efficacy of implementing VNs into digital pedagogies to encourage the development of (")creatigational skills.(") This term is a response to the problematic wording already in use for skills such as creative thinking and collaborative abilities, skills encouraged by and developed through interactive activities, such as gaming and many of the arts. Current terminology labels them (")soft(") or (")non-cognitive(") skills, which are clear misnomers that passively diminish the importance of creative thought. This research explores how gaming, specifically so-called (")narrative(") gaming, of which VNs are one example, might contribute to the development of creatigational skills in students. Through the creation of VNs for this study, I examine both the ability of this genre to engage and encourage imaginative thought, as well as the practicality of designing and developing VNs for classroom use.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2017
- Identifier
- CFE0006906, ucf:51728
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006906
- Title
- From Ashes To Ash(&)#233;: Memorializing Traumatic Events Through Participatory Digital Archives.
- Creator
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Carlton, Patricia, Kamrath, Mark, Janz, Bruce, Mauer, Barry, Underberg-Goode, Natalie, Bedwell, Jeffrey, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
-
Traumatic, cataclysmic events, whether caused by man-made or natural forces, threaten the safety, stability, and resilience of a community or state. Additionally, massive media exposure given to documenting and providing information, place the media consumers at psychological risk. As an alternative to broadcast news reports, online memorials and disaster archives provide the public the means and central locations for witnessing catastrophic events, as well as collectively commemorating and...
Show moreTraumatic, cataclysmic events, whether caused by man-made or natural forces, threaten the safety, stability, and resilience of a community or state. Additionally, massive media exposure given to documenting and providing information, place the media consumers at psychological risk. As an alternative to broadcast news reports, online memorials and disaster archives provide the public the means and central locations for witnessing catastrophic events, as well as collectively commemorating and mourning the tragic losses. According to psychological and ethnographic research, narrativizing the trauma through shared memories and artifacts of mourning produce multiple therapeutic benefits, including the likely development of cognitive awareness, empathy, and catharsis.Complicating these benefits, however, are psychological risks of secondary trauma resulting from archiving and curating disaster collections, and the potential for economic and political exploitation. The participatory disaster archives are embedded in trauma culture, serving as public witnesses to survivors of trauma and reinforcing the medical, social, and civic infrastructures associated with a community's recovery from and resilience to calamities. Ironically, the confluence of public archive/memorials with medical and other socio-technical institutions that facilitate recovery from crises, also contribute to trauma culture's sustenance. This dissertation investigates the effects of digitally archiving and memorializing traumatic events through an interdisciplinary methodology of critical cultural studies and ethnography. I argue that participatory disaster archives may both mitigate psychological risks and augment social benefits through adopting protocols of best practice.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2016
- Identifier
- CFE0006277, ucf:51599
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0006277
- Title
- Reimagining Composition I as a Study in Storytelling Across Disciplines and Media.
- Creator
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O'Keeffe, Angel, Janz, Bruce, Flammia, Madelyn, Underberg-Goode, Natalie, Adams, JoAnne, Malala, John, University of Central Florida
- Abstract / Description
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This dissertation focuses on the role that College Composition courses can and should play in addressing the digital divide and the literacy divide. For this project, digital divide refers to the space between those students who have opportunity to participate in online discourse communities and to contribute to the collective intelligence described by Henry Jenkins and those who have not had this opportunity even though they do have access to current technology. The literacy divide discussed...
Show moreThis dissertation focuses on the role that College Composition courses can and should play in addressing the digital divide and the literacy divide. For this project, digital divide refers to the space between those students who have opportunity to participate in online discourse communities and to contribute to the collective intelligence described by Henry Jenkins and those who have not had this opportunity even though they do have access to current technology. The literacy divide discussed is created when literacy is defined simply as the ability to read and write. Students need to be visually, digitally, and technologically literate.In response to these gaps, I propose reimagining the first-year writing course as a course in storytelling across disciplines and media. Story, oral storytelling, digital narrative, and transmedia narrative are explained. An analysis of several stories including a canonical comic book, a commercial, and a long-term narrative television show are analyzed using Aristotle, Propp, Saussure, Jenkins, Birkerts, and other theorists important to work in Texts and Technology. The guiding question for this project is How can a focus on storytelling using new and digital media in the first-year English composition course create an authentic and relevant learning experience for contemporary students while bridging the digital divide created by the lack of opportunity to participate in the collective intelligence of the convergence culture?Finally, the dissertation includes a research protocol which describes and justifies future research to test the claims made in this dissertation.
Show less - Date Issued
- 2018
- Identifier
- CFE0007350, ucf:52082
- Format
- Document (PDF)
- PURL
- http://purl.flvc.org/ucf/fd/CFE0007350
