| 1. |
- Bäcke, Maria
(author)
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"Freedom for Just One Night" : The Promise and Threat of Information and Communication Technologies
- 2007
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In: WomenWriters.net. - : WomenWriters.net. ; Spring:Special Guest Issue
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- ’Freedom for Just One Night’ The Promise and Threat of Information and Communication Technologies Not many novels have been written about technology from a female perspective, but Jeanette Winterson’s The PowerBook and Pat Cadigan’s children’s book Avatar are two examples where information and communication technologies (ICT) play a major role. That women often see the benefits of a less regulated space provided by the technology is explored in these two novels. In this essay I will study them through the lens of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of smooth and striated space. The focus has been on three different issues: information and communication technology’s impact on identity; privacy and security on the Internet; and also – since both of the authors are women, who consider gender-related strategies – female views of ICT. The novels contradict the idea that there is a virtual reality entirely separated from the real world; both imply that although ICT creates a virtual environment, the meetings and communications that take place in it are real, especially from an emotional perspective. The novels suggest that the characters’ sense of identity and security often is tested when opposites – smooth/striated, online/offline, virtual/real, emotional/technical, private/public – collide, when this collision triggers an emotional response. In Avatar emotions are in fact a method to authenticate the validity of what happens in a virtual environment. Furthermore, the collision and its impact on the emotions create an indeterminacy, a smooth space, and seems to be a narrative strategy for both Winterson and Cadigan, which they both use to examine a number of issues, including patriarchy, which shows what these female authors think is possible to do with the help of ICT. Both texts study how the Internet – and the thoughts mediated through the Internet – influence individuals and societies. As a new medium, Internet can be considered new territory, a new frontier. Whose thoughts are going to be trendsetting on the Net? Who colonizes Cyberspace? Both authors point towards the benefits of a more balanced viewpoint, where more angles than one are taken into account, and what can happen when a hegemonic world-view has been shaken. These novels convincingly show that it is in the dynamic tension between smooth and striated that new viewpoints can be found.
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| 2. |
- Engberg, Maria
(author)
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Aesthetics of Noise in Digital Poetry
- 2010
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In: Cybertext Yearbook. - : University of Jyväskylä. - 1457-6899.
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this essay, I analyze the phenomenon of digital poems represen-tative of the use of a visually “busy” and typographically dense aesthetic.1 As my primary examples I investigate three poetic works: Spawn by Andy Campbell, Diagram Series 6 by Jim Rosenberg, and Leaved Life by Anne Frances Wysocki. I argue that a dominant aesthetic technique of these works, which I propose to call “visual noise,” is generated by a tactilely responsive surface in combination with visual excess which requires an embodied engagement from the reader/user in order for a reading to take place.2 I focus on visual noise, excluding for the moment the common and widespread practice of sonic noise. Analyses of sound and practices of sonic noise in literary practice are an important twin to the analyses I offer here.
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| 3. |
- Engberg, Maria, et al.
(author)
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How Is Digital Poetry Avant-Garde?
- 2008
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this paper, we discuss the opportunities and the difficulties of applying the concept of the avant-garde to digital poetry and poetics. We examine the question with reference to a body of critical and poetic works and performances from the recent E-poetry 2007 symposium in Paris. These works suggest that digital poetry treats the historical avant-garde as a tradition to draw on, rather than a model to emulate through truly disruptive practice.
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| 4. |
- Lindhé, Cecilia
(author)
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Världar i kollision : En studie av Kerstin Ekmans roman Gör mig levande igen
- 2001
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In: Samlaren. - Uppsala : Svenska Litteratursällskapet. - 0348-6133 .- 2002-3871. ; 122, s. 74-94
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cecilia Lindhé. Worlds in Collision: A Study of Kerstin Ekman's Novel Gör mig levande igen.Kerstin Ekman's novel Gör mig levande igen (1996) [Make me Alive Again] is a rewriting and continuation of Eyvind Johnson's Krilon-trilogy (1941–43). This essay addresses the different challenges which Ekman's novel makes to Johnson's trilogy. It is argued that these challenges do not simply take the shape of a confrontation of the male perceiving subject, but appear also as a questioning of literary traditions in the wider sense. Through these challenges Gör mig levande igen manages not only to give a voice to women but also transgresses conventional female representation. Exploring the novel's intertextual relationship with the traditions, conventions, and genres that constitute it, Gör mig levande igen is revealed to be a contradictory novel working within the system it attempts to destabilise. This essay shows how the novel re-evaluates the distinctions and boundaries that mark the idea of a hegemonic subject and a literary canon by undermining boundaries that run between worlds of different ontological status. These worlds, that consist of reality/myth, fact/fiction, and original/imitation are set in motion and collide, opening up a structure that strives toward closure. By highlighting these collisions together with the oscillation between epistemological and ontological dominants, between literary modernist techniques and postmodernist devices, it is possible to see how Gör mig levande igen works to open up a closed structure thus making room for women's perspectives.
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| 5. |
- Solberg Søilen, Klaus, 1968-
(author)
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Macklean som ekonom
- 2009
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In: Svaneholms Årsbok. - Skurup : Svaneholm Andelsförening. ; , s. 37-48, s. 37-48
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Book chapter (pop. science, debate, etc.)abstract
- Rutger Macklean (1742-1816) står ofta beskriven som friherre, politiker, och skiftesreformist. I vilken grad var han också ekonom? Frågan kan verka något långsökt vid en första anblick, men då får man komma ihåg, att ekonomi är ett gammalt grekiskt ord för ”hushållningsadministration" och att det var just detta som präglade mycket av hans verksamhet på Svaneholm, både för egen och för andras räkning . På Mackleans tid fanns det inte ekonomer i den betydelsen som vi idag förstår begreppet. Adam Smith (1723-1790), som ofta räknas som grundläggaren av det vetenskapliga studiet av ekonomi, var t.ex. moralfilosof. Hans mest kända verk Wealth of Nations från år 1776 finner vi också i Mackleans bokhylla. På den tiden benämndes inte det vetenskapliga fackområdet ekonomi, men politisk ekonomi vilket var en blandning av vad vi i dag skulle kalla statsvetenskap och ekonomi.
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| 6. |
- Niedenthal, Simon
(author)
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Complicated Shadows : the Aesthetic Significance of Simulated Illumination in Digital Games
- 2008
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- A common feature of many digital games is that they are played in a simulated 3D environment, a game world. Simulated illumination is the lighting designed into a game world. This thesis explores the influence of simulated illumination in digital games upon the emotion and behavior of the player. It does so within the context of game aesthetics, building upon an understanding of games as having the potential to evoke an aesthetic experience that is deeply absorbing, is experienced as whole and coherent, evokes intense feelings or emotions, and engages a sense of “make believe.” A full account of how simulated illumination affects people is gained by tracing the contributions from media practice and real-space lighting, as well as taking into account the unique possibilities of interactive media. Based upon the rich set of lighting references and possibilities that are present in digital games, this thesis offers a taxonomy of influence of simulated illumination, which is organized such that it moves from progressively simple patterns and mechanisms that work without much player awareness, towards progressively greater complexity and consciousness of light qualities. The study of simulated illumination is complex, and best conducted within a transdisciplinary framework that includes three perspectives: empirical emotion research, investigation of the lighting attitudes of creative practitioners, and formal analysis of games with the aim of articulating their use qualities related to simulated illumination. The way in which a “triangulation” study could be structured is presented through the results of the twoyear Shadowplay project, with specific reference to the effects of warm (reddish) and cool (bluish) simulated illumination upon the experience of gameplay. We learned that exposure to warm light in a game prototype created more positive affect and led to better performance, and uncovered an interesting correspondence in the lighting attitudes of creative practitioners, regarding the relatively attractive versus repulsive qualities of warm and cool illumination in game environments. The (sometimes inconsistent) results of the Shadowplay project are discussed with reference to the conception of “pleasure” as it is developed within phenomenological philosophy and hedonic psychology. Considered this way, simulated illumination can create “eliciting conditions” for more complex sequences of emotions that constitute game pleasures. Within a game, we respond emotionally to exposure to qualities of simulated illumination, based upon what we bring with us into the game (whether based upon tastes, attitudes related to genre, memories or more “hard-wired” responses to light). At the same time, we implicitly learn the significance of the illumination that we encounter through our activity in the game. This means that there is no simple mapping of illumination quality to emotional outcome. Rather, designers need to learn to manipulate the unique potentials of simulated illumination in relation to the other elements of the gameplay experience.
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| 7. |
- Gislén, Ylva
(author)
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Rum för handling. Kollaborativt berättande i digitala medier
- 2003
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Avhandlingen fokuserar på kollaborativt berättande i digitala medier, och tar avstamp i relativt detaljerade beskrivningar av de designprojekt som utgör avhandlingsarbetets ryggrad. Kännetecknande för dessa designprojekt är att de kombinerar fysiska och virtuella rum och/eller flera medieplattformar. Utifrån kritiska läsningar av designval och bruk av de koncept och prototyper som designprojekten utmynnat i presenteras argument för föreslagna "sätt att se" på design av berättande i digitala medier och centrala kvaliteter i miljöer för kollaborativt berättande. Grundläggande är att se berättande som en överenskommelse, som måste springa ur den berättarsituation, den fysiska och sociala verklighet, som utgör en oavvislig del av allt berättande. Denna överenskommelse upprättar ett "rum" för att undersöka och värdera möjlig mänsklig handling, ett rum vars estetiska egenskaper inte kan skiljas från de etiska och politiska frågeställningar som sätts i rörelse av allt berättande. Utifrån detta grundläggande synsätt diskuteras frågan om utformandet av handlingsutrymme i relation till interaktivitet i digitala medier, begrepp som roll, karaktär, samarbete och konflikt samt rytm, poesi och mångtydighet. Argumenten och resonemangen grundas, utöver i den kritiska läsningen av designprojekten, också i en bredare översikt av narrativitetsbegreppets utveckling inom human- och samhällsvetenskaperna de senaste två decennierna samt i en diskussion av teorier, synsätt och vanliga grundantaganden kring berättande i digitala media. Utrymme i avhandlingen ges också åt en kunskapsteoretisk diskussion kring frågan om design som forskning, främst ur ett perspektiv grundat i STS-fältet men också i relation till förda resonemang ifråga om praxisbaserad forskning i allmänhet och designforskning och designteori i synnerhet.
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| 8. |
- Engberg, Maria, et al.
(author)
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Cultural expression in augmented and mixed reality
- 2014
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In: Convergence. The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. - : Sage Publications. - 1354-8565 .- 1748-7382. ; 20:1, s. 3-9
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Journal article (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Most readers of Convergence will have some familiarity with the developing digital media forms that go under the name of augmented reality and mixed reality (MAR or separately, AR and MR). The widespread availability of smart phones in the last 10 years has redefined AR and MR that had previously been confined to the laboratory. Smart phones and tablets have become the platform for a variety of applications in which digital text, images, video, and audio are overlaid on the screen and appear to be present in the space around the user. In addition, the smart phone or tablet can typically determine the user’s location in the world and orientation in his/her immediate environment. Along with the commercial uses for location-sensitive advertising, new forms of cultural expression (e.g. for art, design, and social media) are beginning to appear. Appropriately for this journal, these new forms can best be studied by a convergence of disciplines, including media studies, art history, literary theory, philosophy (particularly phenomenology), interaction design, sociology, anthropology, communication studies, human–computer interaction, and computer science. Many of these disciplines are represented in the contributions in this special issue that focuses on the ways in which AR and MR participate in cultural expression in today’s heterogeneous media economy. Do AR and MR constitute a new medium? What are the specific qualities of the new medium that give rise to new forms of cultural expression? Are AR and MR two different media with different characteristic qualities and affordances? Over the past two decades, computer scientists have analyzed AR and MR as media forms from their own technical and operational perspectives (e.g. Milgram and Kashino, 1994). These questions are addressed from artistic and theoretical perspectives by the contributions to this special issue.
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| 9. |
- Cervin, Cecilia
(author)
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Det illojala barnets uppror : Studier kring jan Myrdals självbiografiska texter
- 1997
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Jan Myrdal has often been considered a controversial author. During the sixties he was mostly regarded as a political figure, much appreciated by those who shared his political views and even more abhorred by those who did not. On the international scene his Report from a Chinese Village (1963) is perhaps the best known of his books, having inspired, for example, the sociologically orientated studies of the American author, Studs Terkel. In his abundant and multifacetted œuvre Myrdal has been working in most of the established genres, and also developed new ones. In my work on Myrdal’s texts I have, for a number of reasons, focused on his Childhood books (1982 - 1989). They represent an important part and, in some ways, the very kernel of his work. They deal with a child, growing up in a very special environment - his parents are internationally orientated radical politicians and, both are Nobel prize winners - developing his mind mostly in opposition to that environment. The story of that child, written by a son of famous parents and himself internationally well-known - a number of his books are translated into several foreign languages, - is in itself an interesting subject for a study. From the critical point of view its concentrated attention on the child and the child’s viewpoint, involving an interesting narratological pattern, invites a close reading in the spirit of the French critic, Gérard Genette, and his follower, Michael Riffaterre. Methodically and theoretically the study of autobiographical writing constitutes a complex task. With regard to generic definitions, the critic will find Childhood an interesting intermediate case between autobiography and autobiographical novel. Regarded historically, Myrdal's Childhood books are part of the great tradition from S:t Augustine and Rousseau and more especially of the rebellious, “réfractaire“ branch formed by Stendhal, Vallès and Strindberg. In the context of autobiographical writings, considered as a genre, Myrdal's books were written at a time when new subgenres were being formed by sociological and psychological case stories and also by a media interest in people - famous and unknown alike - speaking freely an openly about their lives and personal problems on the radio, in magazines and in TV-shows. Myrdal's’ readers certainly had their expectations formed by these variations of autobiographical writing. For these variations I have chosen a term proposeded by Pillippe Lejeune: “littérature personnelle“. In my “Introduction“ after a brief survey of generic theory put forward by Johnny Kondrup och Eva Hættner Aurelius, I discuss my reasons for turning to the French critic, Pillippe Lejeune, as a seminal force among generic theorists. His emphasis on generic distinctions, not as a norm of classification but as a reader’s tool towards his generic understanding of the text, has been adopted as a guiding principle. Particular attention is given to Lejeune’s discussion of the autobiographical pact: through the name identity between author and protagonist the former signs a kind of contract obligating himself to tell the truth, or perhaps his truth about the life and the experiences being related. This pact, be it implicit or explicit, appeared to be of great importance to Myrdal's’ readers, delimitating their horizon of expectations as well as their understanding of the text and, in particular, their evaluation of the text. A survey of the actual stage in generic history during which the Childhood books were published, follows, special regard beeing paid to those new kinds of “littérature personnelle“ which have been conditioned by developements in the mass media. In this context, different readers’ expectations in relation to various kinds of auto-biographical writings will be discussed. Lastly we arrive at the extensive collection of reviews which forms the basis of my next chapter, “The Reception“. Myrdal's Childhood provoked an intense debate. The book was first brought to public notice by the author in person, who read it on Swedish Radio, and many people reacted against what they regarded as an evil and false description of the famous parents. A large number of reviews followed, the study of which is an important part of my work. Here the marriage of genre theory and reception theory, proclaimed in Le pacte autobiographique by Pilippe Lejeune, comes into its own. His conception of genre viewed as a reader’s tool - “understanding is genrebound“ - informs my understanding of the reviewers’ different readings and evaluations. The reception of Myrdal’s Childhood books raises the following questions: With what kind of previous understanding, with what kind and degree of consciousness of genre (genremedvetande) and with what horizons of expectations did the readers meet those books? What kinds of readings were put in motion by the different generic expectations? How was the reader’s evaluation influenced by those presuppositions? Those reviewers who read Childhood as an autobiography or memoir emphasized the author’s duty to tell the truth about his childhood, including an appreciative attitude towards his parents. As that attitude was highly critical, these reviewers evaluated the book according to their generic expectations: this could not possibly be the truth about those famous and generally esteemed persons, and so the description was an outrageous lie. On the other hand, those who chose to read the book as a novel, as a story of a neglected and unhappy child, found it a true and deeply moving tale. So the reception of the Childhood books took on in a way the character of a trial, the readers taking the parts of prosecutors, witnesses and judges: had the author, or had he not, exercised fairness and justice to his famous parents in his description of his childhood? Several reviewers, who found it both possible and rewarding to read the Childhood books simultanously as autobiography and as autobiographical novels, could find numerous qualities in the books. They found the story a true picture of a very special child in very special surroundings, but also found a universality that made them identifiy themselves with the child (and also, in a few cases) with the parents. The evaluations of the reviewers changed in an interesting way with respect to the later books in the series. Many reviewers of the first book, Childhood, appreciated its finer qualities, but in many cases critics took a dismissive attitude.The second book, Another World, was highly estimated, however. The reviewers now tended to read the book less as a biography of the famous parents and more as a story of the child, told by the child itself. They were increasingly able to regard it as a hybrid between autobio-graphy and fiction, and, accordingly, could accept the personal descriptions of the parents as the experiences and the subjective truth of the child. Most reviewers of the third book, Getting on Thirteen, applied this model of reading. Correspondingly, the evaluations were changed; with very few exceptions the books were highly regarded by later reviewers. A new and more variated generic consciousness was fundamental to their evaluation. And so much for the reception. In my own readings I have asked the corresponding questions: What possibilities are offered to the critic by the different generic expectations, and by the different models of previous understanding and evaluation? What happens when the reader regards the much-debated works as free artefacts, as parts of the authors complete œuvre, as parts of a tradition, as descriptions of an existing and referential reality, or as authorial expressions in the making of his own consciousness, his personality, his ego? These are the questions that prevade my reading of the Childhood books. I have chosen to consider Myrdals’ books mainly as artefacts belonging to the autobiographical tradition, having their existence on the border between autobiography and novel. The chapter “The process of Growth“ aims at a description of Myrdals early and various declarations of his writing intentions, even these forming part of his autobiographical writing: this is his view of himself as an author, the author also of the Childhood books. Myrdal considers his authorial intentions a question of loyalties: whom will his writing serve? He has made a deliberate choice of loyalties; they remain not with the educated, well-manœvered people, but with the poor and oppressed, who show resistance towards those in power. This resistance often takes forms which are vulgar in a Bachtinean sense. This vulgarity assumes a programmatic value: the author chooses his tradition from popular tales of rich and poor, which often contain vulgar resistance to and rebellion against all kinds of oppression. For such resistance he has found a word: he regards himself a “réfractaire“, a resister and a rebel, in the tradition of the French Enlightenment authors and their heirs, e.g. Strindberg and Jules Vallès. The task and the resonsibility this “réfractaire“ tradition entails, are the foundation of Myrdals’ view of himself as an author, one of his many descriptions of his self, the explanation of which, he finds in those experiences from his childhood contained in the Childhood books. Myrdal has been working on autobiographical material in various guises. In “Littérature personnelle before Childhood“ a short account is given of Myrdal’s use of “I“ for different purposes. In public performances, not unlike those of the parents so profoundly despised by the son, appears an “I“. That “I“ is used by the author as an example in a political analysis. Another “I“ comes forward in the deep and earnest self-examination in the author’s earlier autobiographical works, e.g.Rescontra and Confessions of a Disloyal European. Still more important: is the fact that from the novels of hi
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| 10. |
- Davies, Bronwyn, et al.
(author)
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Constituting "the subject" in poststructuralist discourse.
- 2006
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In: Feminism & Psychology. - : SAGE Journals. - 0959-3535. ; 16:1, s. 87-103
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In this article, we describe a collective biography that we convened in order to revisit the site of the radical theoretical break with the liberal humanist individual marked by the poststructuralist work of Henriques and colleagues and the feminist poststructuralist work of Weedon. These writers suggest that the new subject of poststructuralist theory will be more open to the changes desired by feminist and social justice movements. They describe the break with the liberal humanist subject as a break that heralds new possibilities of personal and cultural transformation. In this article, using the medium of collective biography stories, we revisit the relation between the liberal humanist individual and the transformative possibilities poststructuralist writers envisaged for the new subject of poststructuralism. We situate the discussion in the context of our transformation into neoliberal subjects over the last three decades.
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