Journal articles on the topic 'David W. Patten'

AbstractThis article takes issue with the theory that those Biblical Hebrew poems, which show an extensive use of verbal forms belonging to the short prefix-conjugation (Northwest Semitic yaqtul) to signify complete situations in the past without the conjunction w-, were composed at an early date (c. 13th-10th centuries B.C.E.). The article takes as its starting point the fundamental discussion by David A. Robertson (1972) and argues that Robertson's neglect of the Masoretic spelling and vocalization, which often help to distinguish between the short and long prefix-conjugations in Biblical Hebrew, is unjustified. Then, it is shown that although in those biblical poems, which are commonly identified as early, short prefixed verbal forms are used to signify complete situations in the past more frequently without the conjunction w- than with it, the use of such forms with the conjunction w- (in the wayyiqtol construction) is also attested in those poems. And on the other hand, a similar pattern of use of short prefixed verbal forms to signify complete situations in the past—more frequently without the conjunction w- than with it—appears also in two poetic texts that are commonly dated to the 6th century B.C.E.: Isa. 41:1-5 and Ps. 44.

Carley, David W., Sinisa M. Trbovic, Alex Bozanich, and Miodrag Radulovacki. Cardiopulmonary control in sleeping Sprague-Dawley rats treated with hydralazine. J. Appl. Physiol. 83(6): 1954–1961, 1997.—To test the hypothesis that hydralazine can suppress spontaneous sleep-related central apnea, respiratory pattern, blood pressure, and heart period were monitored in Sprague-Dawley rats. In random order and on separate days, rats were recorded after intraperitoneal injection of 1) saline or 2) 2 mg/kg hydralazine. Normalized minute ventilation (NV˙i) declined significantly with transitions from wake to non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) sleep (−5.1%; P = 0.01) and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep (−4.2%; P = 0.022). Hydralazine stimulated respiration (NV˙iincreased by 21%; P < 0.03) and eliminated the effect of state on NV˙i. Blood pressure decreased by 17% after hydralazine, and the correlation between fluctuations in mean blood pressure and NV˙i changed from strongly positive during control recordings to weakly negative after hydralazine ( P < 0.0001 for each). Postsigh and spontaneous apneas were reduced during NREM and REM sleep after hydralazine ( P < 0.05 for each). This suppression was strongly correlated with the reduction in blood pressure and with the degree of respiratory stimulation. We conclude that mild hydralazine-induced hypotension leads to respiratory stimulation and apnea suppression.

History in Africa carried an article in 1992 entitled “The European Introduction of Crops into West Africa in Precolonial Times.” I wrote this to correct an impression left by several historians that only maize and cassava were worth mentioning. My reading of precolonial African history had made it very clear that a great many new crops were brought to the continent during the slave-trade period. My initial geographical focus was what used to be called Lower Guinea, roughly the coast from Cape Palmas to Mt. Cameroon, but inevitably my research took in all of western Africa from Senegal to Angola and up to the southern fringe of the Sahara. My findings were admittedly interim, a sort of database for future refinement. And yet I was able to identify 86 introduced crops.It was ingenuous of me to expect that one paper would suffice to over-turn what had become conventional wisdom. In 1995 John Iliffe, in 1997 Elizabeth Isichei, in 1998 John Reader repeated the maize-cassava mantra. In 2002 Christopher Ehret expanded the duo of exotic crops to include tobacco, peanuts, New World beans, Asian rice and sugar cane. David W. Phillipson reiterated in 2005 what he had said 20 years earlier, citing only maize, cassava and bananas. And in 2006 James L.A. Webb Jr. named just four: maize, cassava, peanuts and potatoes.This pattern of minimization may reflect what seems to be a general disinclination of historians to dig deeply into botany. An important recent book titled Writing African History devotes only 17 of 510 pages to the subject.

Kew, John J. M., Peter W. Halligan, John C. Marshall, Richard E. Passingham, John C. Rothwell, Michael C. Ridding, C. David Marsden, and David J. Brooks. Abnormal access of axial vibrotactile input to deafferented somatosensory cortex in human upper limb amputees. J. Neurophysiol. 77: 2753–2764, 1997. We studied two human subjects with total deafferentation of one upper limb secondary to traumatic multiple cervical root avulsions. Both subjects developed a phantom limb and underwent elective amputation of the paralyzed, deafferentated limb. Psychophysical study revealed in each subject an area of skin in the pectoral region ipsilateral to the amputation where vibrotactile stimulation (VS) elicited referred sensations (RS) in the phantom limb. Positron emission tomography was then used to measure regional cerebral blood flow changes during VS of the pectoral region ipsilateral to the amputation with RS and during VS of a homologous part of the pectoral region adjacent to the intact arm without RS. A voxel-based correlation analysis was subsequently used to study functional connectivity. VS of the pectoral region adjacent to the intact arm was associated with activation of the dorsal part of the contralateral primary somatosensory cortex (S1) in a position consistent with the S1 trunk area. In contrast, VS of the pectoral region ipsilateral to the amputation with RS was associated with activation of the contralateral S1 that extended from the level of the trunk representation ventrally over distances of 20 and 12 mm, respectively, in the two subjects. The area of S1 activated during VS of the digits in a normal control subject was coextensive with the ventral S1 region abnormally activated during VS of the ectopic phantom representation in the two amputees, suggesting that the deafferented digit or hand/arm area had been activated by sensory input from the pectoral region. Correlation analysis showed an abnormal pattern of intrinsic connectivity within the deafferented S1 hand/arm area of both amputees. In one subject, the deafferented S1 was functionally connected with 3 times as many S1 voxels as the normally afferented S1. This abnormal functional connectivity extended in both the rostrocaudal and ventrodorsal dimensions. The results demonstrate that sensory input delivered to the axial body surface may gain access to the S1 hand/arm area in some humans who have suffered extensive deafferentation of this area. The findings are consistent with the hypothesis that deafferentation of an area of S1 may result in activation of previously dormant inputs from body surfaces represented in immediately adjacent parts of S1. The results also provide evidence that changes in functional connectivity between these adjacent areas of the cortex play a role in the somatotopic reorganization.

Background:Uveitis is an extra articular manifestation of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). Biological therapy, especially monoclonal TNF inhibitors, are useful to prevent and to treat refractory non-infectious uveitis. However, other biologics had been related to paradoxical uveitisObjectives:Our aim was to assessa) the epidemiological and clinical features of uveitis associated to PsA andb) its relationship with biological treatment used in PsA.Methods:Observational study of unselected consecutive patients studied in a single reference University Hospital with: a) diagnosis of PsA by CASPAR criteria andb) diagnosis of uveitis by ophthalmologist exploration. Demographics features, clinical findings, complementary tests and treatment were recorded.Results:We studied 320 (182 women/138 men) patients with PsA; mean age at PsA diagnosis of 41.7±15.79 years and with a delay of diagnosis from the onset of symptoms of 2.6±2.01 years.Ten patients (4 men/6 women) out of 320 patients (prevalence 3.13%) with a mean age of 42.2 ± 16.8 years were diagnosed of uveitis after a mean follow-up of 10±7.9 years. In all cases, the uveitis had an anterior pattern. Only 1 (10%) of them had a bilateral affection, acute onset in 10 patients (100%), and 4 of them (40%) had a recurrent pattern. The diagnosis of uveitis preceded the one of PsA in 5 (50%) patients in 1.6±0.87 years. In those with a previous diagnosis of PsA, it was done 13.3±10.4 years before the uveitis onset. Only 1 patient (10%) with recurrent unilateral uveitis presented vitritis. In 10 patients the mean number of anterior chamber cells was 2±0.4. Comparison of baseline characteristics and clinical features between patients who developed uveitis and those who did not is shown intable.Only 2 patients (20%) with uveitis received biological therapy. The first one developed its first episode of uveitis after 29 months with etanercept. After the episode, a switch to adalimumab was done, without any other episode of uveitis after 22 months of treatment. The second one was a patient with multiple episodes of recurrent uveitis, who developed new flares with adalimumab, certolizumab and golimumab.Conclusion:Most of the uveitis had an anterior and unilateral pattern. The onset of uveitis in patients with PsA can either precede or go after the diagnosis of the PsA. HLA B27+ was more frequent in patients with uveitis. Biological therapy did not achieve good answer in patients with recurrent uveitis.Table.Uveitis (n=10)Non uveitis (n= 310)pBaseline general featuresAge, years (mean±SD)42.2 ± 16.846.4 ± 11.90.38Sex, n (m/w) (%)4/6 (40/60)134/176 (43.2/56.8)0.90HLAB27, positive %6011.8<0.01Disease CharacteristicsAxial arthritis, %40.037.00.88Peripheral arthritis, %80.072.90.89Hip affection, %30.020.00.71Enthesitis, %60.040.50.55Dactylitis, %20.029.50.77ScoresBASDAI (mean ± SD)3.3 ± 2.082.4 ± 1.90.26BASFI (mean ± SD)2.7 ± 1.91.6 ± 10.31Disclosure of Interests:Iñigo González-Mazón: None declared, Lara Sanchez-Bilbao Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Natalia Palmou-Fontana: None declared, David Martinez-Lopez: None declared, Susana Armesto: None declared, Miguel A González-Gay Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Abbvie, MSD, Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Abbvie, MSD, Ricardo Blanco Grant/research support from: AbbVie, MSD, and Roche, Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Pfizer, Roche, Bristol-Myers, Janssen, and MSD

Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) as annual or biennial crop is an important vegetable in China. The lettuce variety Feiqiao, which is extensively cultivated in autumn and winter, is grown for its stem and is a characteristic species bred in Yong'an City. Since October 2005, a new disease of lettuce has been observed sporadically in the fields. Initially, chlorotic symptoms, or a faded red color, were observed on the inner leaves of the infected lettuce plants. Then, the inner leaves bleached and appeared pale, while the top leaves became straight and elongated, and stopped growing. Gummosis was observed at the base of young leaves, and the whole plant became stunted and died. The disease was named lettuce chlorotic leaf rot disease. In 2008, there was a disease outbreak in Yong'an City with an incidence of approximately 30%. In 2012, total DNA was extracted from 0.1 g of leaf tissue collected from 20 symptomatic and five asymptomatic lettuce plants using the CTAB method. A PCR analysis was performed using the phytoplasma-specific primer set R16mF2/R16mR1 (1). An approximately 1.4-kb amplicon was obtained from all 20 symptomatic plants, but no corresponding DNA fragment was amplified from the five asymptomatic plants. PCR products were cloned in Escherichia coli DH5α, using the pMD18-T vector (TaKaRa, Japan), and two isolates were sequenced. The two 1,431-bp sequences were identical (GenBank Accession No. KJ668578). A BLAST analysis revealed a 99% identity between lettuce chlorotic leaf rot phytoplasma and mulberry dwarf phytoplasma, a group 16SrI phytoplasma described by Win et al. in 2012 (3). After analyzing with iPhyclassifier, the virtual RFLP pattern derived from the 16S rDNA F2n/R2 fragment was most similar to the reference pattern of the 16Sr group I, subgroup B (NC_005303), with a pattern similarity coefficient of 0.99 (2). Additionally, the leaf veins and roots with symptoms were processed for ultrastructural examinations using transmission electron microscopy. Many typical phytoplasma-like bodies were observed in the sieve elements in the leaf veins and roots, and they were spherical to oval or dumbbell shaped and 200 to 800 nm in diameter. In agreement with these findings, seven strains of phytoplasma from 16SrI-A and 16SrI-B subgroups were reported in association with lettuce plants exhibiting various types of symptoms which were not completely consistent with those observed in China (4). To our knowledge, this is the first report of a phytoplasma associated with lettuce in China. References: (1) R. E. Davis et al. Microbiol. Res. 158:229, 2003. (2) W. Wei et al. Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 57:1855, 2006. (3) N. K. K. Win et al. J. Gen. Plant Pathol. 78:264, 2012. (4) J. Zhang et al. Phytopathology 94:842, 2004.

Background:The efficacy of ixekizumab (IXE) in biologic-naïve patients with radiographic axial spondyloarthritis (r-axSpA) has been previously presented using traditional axSpA outcome measures, such as BASDAI and ASAS.Objectives:In patients with active r-axSpA, to assess the analgesic efficacy of IXE as it relates to patient-reported and objective measures of inflammation.Methods:The Phase III COAST-V (NCT02696785) multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo (PBO)-controlled and active reference arm with adalimumab (ADA) trial investigated the efficacy of IXE in 341 patients (pts) with active r-axSpA for 52 weeks (W). Pts were initially randomized to IXEQ4W, IXEQ2W, PBO, and ADAQ2W. At W16, pts assigned to PBO and ADA were re-randomized to IXEQ2W or Q4W. Changes in spinal pain at night (SP-N) and spinal pain were measured at each study visit and analysed while controlling for CRP levels or mean of BASDAI questions 5 & 6 (Q5: Duration and Q6: Intensity of morning stiffness). Observed data analyses are presented for each group stratified by treatment arm and compared to PBO. In the initial analysis, pts were categorized into 2 sub-groups defined as “Sustained” and “Fluctuating” depending on: CRP <5 mg/L W4-16 vs. CRP ≥5 mg/L at any point beyond W4 between weeks 4-16 respectively. In a second analysis, pts were categorized based on BASDAI Q5/6 improvement: “Sustained” if ≥2-pt improvement W12-16 vs. “Fluctuating” if <2-pt improvement at any point beyond W12 between W12-16.Results:Between W0 and W16, pts treated (tx) with IXEQ4W experienced greater reduction in SP-N than pts tx with ADA, in both CRP sustained and fluctuating groups (Fig 1a). Pts in the IXEQ4W and ADA arms showed different trajectories of pain improvement in the CRP fluctuating groups. For the pts with a fluctuating CRP ≥5 mg/L, pts in IXEQ4W arm demonstrated a greater reduction in SP-N compared to pts in PBO arm (p < .001) at W16, whereas pts in ADA arm did not experience a reduction in SP-N compared to PBO (p = .416). For the pts with a sustained CRP <5mg/L, IXEQ4W and ADA treatments both significantly demonstrated reduction in SP-N compared to PBO at W16 (IXEQ4W: p = .002; ADA: p = .02), with IXEQ4W treatment showing a greater level of reduction (Fig 1a). The pts randomized to ADA and re-randomized to IXEQ2W or Q4W (ADA/IXE) experienced further improvement in SP-N. This effect was sustained over the 52-wk period (Fig 1b). The same pattern of improvement in SP-N was observed when controlling for the BASDAI Q5/6; the SP-N improvement was greater in pts with a sustained BASDAI Q5/6 compared to pts with a fluctuating BASDAI Q5/6, regardless of treatment (Table 1). In the fluctuating BASDAI Q5/6, for pts in ADA/IXE arm, further reduction of both spinal pain and SP-N were observed (Table 1).Table 1.Change in Pain Outcome at baseline, week 16 and week 52 by Inflammation Status as assessed by BASDAI or CRP levels for patients receiving placebo (PBO), adalimumab (ADA), and ixekizumab every 4 weeks (IXE Q4W)Change from baselinePBOADAIXEQ4WbaselineWeek 16(as observed)Week 52PBO/IXE(as observed)baselineWeek 16(as observed)Week 52ADA/IXE(as observed)baselineWeek 16(as observed)Week 52(as observed)Spinal painBASDAI Q5/6 sustained7.54-3.33-4.657.21-4.07-4.57.4-4.52-4.94BASDAI Q5/6 fluctuating7.37-1.32-2.826.76-1.2-2.246.97-1.3-2.52CRP sustained7-1.53-1.936.83-2.9-3.67.23-3.57-4.21CRP fluctuating7.51-1.96-3.637.28-2-2.897.24-2.91-3.93Spinal pain at nightBASDAI Q5/6 sustained7.12-3.21-4.617.26-4.63-4.927.12-4.73-4.91BASDAI Q5/6 fluctuating7.05-1.15-2.886.6-1.2-2.497.03-2.17-2.92CRP sustained7.2-1.87-2.276.76-3.2-3.856.89-3.8-4.12CRP fluctuating7.04-1.69-3.67.24-2.21-3.397.35-3.68-4.38Conclusion:IXE reduced SP-N and spinal pain irrespective of CRP or morning stiffness. Additionally, pts treated with ADA re-randomized to IXE experienced a further reduction in SP-N and spinal pain. Collectively, these results support the additive benefits of IXE in reducing pain above measurable effects on inflammation.Acknowledgements:The authors would like to thank Eglantine Julle-Daniere for writing and editorial contributionsDisclosure of Interests:Kurt de Vlam Speakers bureau: Eli Lilly, Novartis, Pfizer, Paid instructor for: Celgene, Amgen, Consultant of: Elil Lillyn Novartis, UCB, Galapagos, Sandoz, Pfizer, Grant/research support from: Celgene, Gaia Gallo Shareholder of: Eli Lilly, Employee of: Eli Lilly, Philip J Mease Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Amgen, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Galapagos, Gilead, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Sun, UCB, Grant/research support from: AbbVie, Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Galapagos, Janssen, Novartis, Pfizer, Sun, UCB, Proton Rahman Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Amgen, BMS, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Consultant of: AbbVie, Amgen, BMS, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, UCB, Grant/research support from: Janssen, Novartis, Venkatesh Krishnan Shareholder of: Eli Lilly, Employee of: Eli Lilly, David Sandoval Shareholder of: Eli Lilly, Employee of: Eli Lilly, Chen-Yen Lin Shareholder of: Eli Lilly, Employee of: Eli Lilly, Rebecca Bolce Shareholder of: Eli Lilly, Employee of: Eli Lilly, Philip G Conaghan Consultant of: personal fees from: AbbVie, AstraZeneca, BMS, Eli Lilly, EMD Serono, Flexion Therapeutics, Galapagos, Gilead, Novartis, Pfizer

Adelson, David W., Jen Yu Wei, Mahrokh Yashar, T. J. O-Lee, and Yvette Taché. Central autonomic activation by intracisternal TRH analogue excites gastric splanchnic afferent neurons. J. Neurophysiol. 81: 682–691, 1999. Intracisternal (ic) injection of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) or its stable analogue RX 77368 influences gastric function via stimulation of vagal muscarinic pathways. In rats, the increase in gastric mucosal blood flow evoked by a low ic dose of RX 77368 occurs via release of calcitonin gene-related peptide from capsaicin-sensitive afferent neurons, most probably of spinal origin. In this study, the effect of low ic doses of RX 77368 on afferent impulse activity in splanchnic single fibers was investigated. The cisterna magna of overnight-fasted, urethan-anesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats was acutely cannulated, and fine splanchnic nerve twigs containing at least one fiber responsive to mechanical probing of the stomach were isolated at a site immediately distal to the left suprarenal ganglion. Unit mechanoreceptive fields were encountered in all portions of the stomach, both superficially and in deeper layers. Splanchnic afferent unit impulse activity was recorded continuously during basal conditions and in response to consecutive ic injections of saline and RX 77368 (15–30 min later; 1.5 or 3 ng). Basal discharge rates ranged from 0 to 154 impulses/min (median = 10.2 impulses/min). A majority of splanchnic single units with ongoing activity increased their mean discharge rate by ≥20% after ic injection of RX 77368 at either 1.5 ng (6/10 units; median increase 63%) or 3 ng (19/24 units; median increase 175%). Five units lacking impulse activity in the 5-min before ic RX 77368 (3 ng) were also excited, with the onset of discharge occurring within 1.0–5.0 min postinjection. In units excited by ic RX 77368, peak discharge occurred 15.6 ± 1.3 min after injection and was followed by a decline to stable activity levels ≤20–40 min thereafter. In a few cases (4/24), ic RX 77368 (3 ng) inhibited the impulse activity of initially active units, with a time course comparable to that seen in units excited by the same treatment. The pattern of discharge in most units was not suggestive of mechanical modulation of activity by rhythmic gastric contractions. The data demonstrate that low ic doses of TRH analogue induce sustained increases in afferent discharge in a substantial proportion of splanchnic neurons innervating the rat stomach. These findings support the notion that splanchnic afferent excitation occurs concomitantly with vasodilatory peptide release from gastric splanchnic afferent nerve terminals after ic TRH-induced autonomic activation.

Background:Uveitis is one of the most frequent extra articular manifestation of spondyloarthritis (SpA). Biological therapy, especially monoclonal TNF inhibitors, may be useful to prevent and to treat uveitis. However, other biologics had been related to paradoxical uveitis.Objectives:Our aim was to assess a) the epidemiological and clinical features of uveitis associated to SpA and b) its relationship with biological treatment used in SpA.Methods:An observational study of patients who developed uveitis form a cohort of 255 consecutive unselected patients with axial SpA (axSpA) classified according to the ASAS criteria. They were divided into: a) ankylosing spondylitis (AS) according to New York modified criteria (n= 193) b) non-radiographic axSpA (nr-axSpA) (n= 62). All these patients were followed in a single reference University Hospital.Results:We studied 255 patients with axSpA (151 men/104 women); mean age 37.8±10.6 years. In 36 (31 in AS; 5 in nr-axSpA) (14.2%) patients at least one episode of uveitis was observed after a follow-up 12.4±4.5 years. The mean age at onset of uveitis was 45.7±14.2 years. The diagnosis of uveitis preceded SpA diagnosis in 5 patients, but most of them occurred after a median of 6 [2-15] years of follow-up. Pattern of uveitis was anterior and acute in all cases, and unilateral in 83%. Median of anterior chamber cells was 1 [1-2] cells. Comparison of baseline characteristics and clinical features between patients who developed uveitis and those who did not is shown in table. Almost all patients who developed uveitis were HLAB27 positive. In these patients a lower frequency of enthesitis and inflammatory bowel disease was observed.Table.UveitisN= 36Non uveitisN= 219pBaseline general featuresAge, years (mean±SD)45.7 ± 14.244.7 ± 12.10.49Sex, n (m/w) (%)21/15 (58.3/41.7)130/89 (59.4/40.6)0.91HLAB27, positive n (%)35 (97.2)130 (59.4)0.00Anti-TNF, n Adalimumab3530.06 Certolizumab140.79 Golimumab1110.87 Infliximab1290.13 Etanercept0120.31Disease CharacteristicsFollow-up of AxSpa, year (mean±SD)13.64 ± 7.612.16 ± 9.730.33AS, n (%)31 (86.1)162 (74.0)0.12nr-AxSp, n (%)5 (13.9)57 (26.0)0.12Peripheral arthritis, n (%)9 (25.0)67 (30.6)0.49Hip affection, n (%)3 (8.3)15 (6.8)0.97Enthesitis, n (%)9 (25.0)81 (37.0)0.16Dactylitis, n (%)2 (5.5)14 (6.4)0.85Psoriasis, n (%)4 (11.1)24 (11.0)0.79Inflammatory bowel disease, n (%)1 (2.8)15 (6.8)0.57Family history, n (%)12 (33.3)58 (26.5)0.396 patients with uveitis received anti-TNF therapy and suffered from 7 episodes of uveitis after 5.6±4 years of treatment, meanwhile only 1 out of the 3 patients who were treated with anti IL-17 did a single episode of uveitis after 4.2±1.9 of follow-up. Patients treated with secukinumab developed 2.72 episodes of uveitis/100 patients/year, meanwhile those who received monoclonal anti TNF presented 2.53 episodes/100 patients / year.Conclusion:The most frequent clinical pattern of uveitis was acute unilateral anterior. Almost all of them were HLA B27 positive. No differences were found in cumulative incidence between secukinumab and monoclonal anti-TNF.Disclosure of Interests:Iñigo González-Mazón: None declared, Lara Sanchez-Bilbao Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Javier Rueda-Gotor: None declared, David Martinez-Lopez: None declared, Miguel A González-Gay Grant/research support from: Pfizer, Abbvie, MSD, Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Abbvie, MSD, Ricardo Blanco Grant/research support from: AbbVie, MSD, and Roche, Speakers bureau: AbbVie, Pfizer, Roche, Bristol-Myers, Janssen, and MSD

Abstract Abstract 556 Epigenetic profiling of primary DLBCLs reveals novel DNA methylation-based clusters and new underlying mechanisms of lymphomagenesis. Nyasha Chambwe, Matthias Kormaksson, Subhajyoti De, Franziska Michor, Nathalie Johnson, David W. Scott, Randy D. Gascoyne, Ari Melnick, Fabien Campagne and Rita Shaknovich. Diffuse Large B Cell Lymphomas (DLBCLs) are a heterogeneous group of diseases from the clinical, molecular and genetic standpoints. While gene expression profiling has identified clinically and biologically relevant DLBCL subtypes, there is still considerable heterogeneity beyond what has been resolved through transcriptional and genetic profiling. It is increasingly clear that lesions in epigenetic regulatory proteins and transcription factors are a hallmark of DLBCL, which suggests that aberrant epigenetic programming is likely to be a significant factor in these tumors. Our recent preliminary data suggests that aberrant DNA methylation is also widespread in DLBCL and contributes to the abnormal expression patterns of GCB and ABC DLBCLs. Moreover recent data in the setting of AML show that DNA methylation profiles delineate disease subtypes not captured through transcriptional or genetic profiling. We hypothesized that DNA methylation profiles would allow us to identify new, biologically significant DLBCL subtypes. We therefore examined the DNA methylation of over 140 patients with DLBCL using the HELP assay covering multiple CpGs at over 14,000 gene loci. We next performed an unbiased (unsupervised) analysis of probesets that display significant variability (n=3,005), using K-means consensus clustering. This procedure identified four robust DLBCL subtypes based on epigenetic profiles. To identify the genes that define these four clusters we next performed supervised analysis of the DLBCL subtypes including the normal counterpart germinal center B-cells as a normal control, using three independent statistical methods. 46 genes defined cluster A, 236 genes defined cluster B, 376 genes defined cluster C and 1271 genes defined cluster D (selected genes displayed change in methylation of at least 30% at BH corrected p-value < 0.05). Each of these epigenetically defined DLBCL subtypes featured aberrant DNA methylation of genes and pathways with potential relevance to pathogenesis. For example cluster A was notable for aberrant DNA methylation of REL, STAT3, CD30; cluster B for aberrant methylation of the TNFa and IFN1 networks; cluster C of IDH2, FOXG1 genes; and cluster D of CDKN2A, ATF3, FOXL3 genes. Other defining characteristics of Cluster D was enrichment for ABC DLBCLs (Fisher exact test, p=0.007) and most remarkably, marked intra-tumor and inter-individual heterogeneity of DNA methylation patterning. This latter feature is suggestive of potential epigenetic clonal complexity and failure to properly control the boundaries of methylated regions of the genome in these tumors. Clusters A and B revealed enrichment for GC features and cluster B had increased expression of MUM1 (Fisher exact test, p=0.007 and p=0.002). Furthermore, we noted that higher expression of DNMT3B and DNMT3L were associated with hypermethylation in DLBCL samples, while higher expression level of AICDA was associated with aberrant hypomethylation in DLBCLs as compared to normal GC B-cells. Higher expression levels of epigenetic modifiers EZH2 and MBD4 was associated with greater heterogeneity of DNA methylation patterning compared to the normal methylation pattern in germinal center B cells. Collectively, the data indicate that DLBCLs are composed of entities defined by specific DNA methylation profiles that only partially overlap with the ABC and GCB classification. The DLBCL subtypes display perturbation of genes likely to play significant biological roles, and aberrant methylation patterning can be traced in part to aberrant expression of epigenetic regulators including DNA methyltransferases, AICDA and EZH2. Disclosures: No relevant conflicts of interest to declare.

List of abstacts and authors:1. Integrating the art and science of psychiatryEugene Allers2. Chronic pain as a predictor of outcome in an inpatient Psychiatric populationEugene Allers and Gerhard Grundling3. Recent advances in social phobiaChrister Allgulander4. Clinical management of patients with anxiety disordersChrister Allgulander5. Do elephants suffer from Schizophrenia? (Or do the Schizophrenias represent a disorder of self consciousness?) A Southern African perspectiveSean Exner Baumann6. Long term maintenance treatment of Bipolar Disorder: Preventing relapseCharles L. Bowden7. Predictors of response to treatments for Bipolar DisorderCharles L. Bowden8. Aids/HIV knowledge and high risk behaviour: A Geo-graphical comparison in a schizophrenia populationP Buckley, S van Vuuren, L Koen, J E Muller, C Seller, H Lategan, D J H Niehaus9. Does Marijuana make you go mad?David J Castle10. Understanding and management of Treatment Resistant SchizophreniaDavid J Castle11. Workshop on research and publishingDavid J Castle12. From victim to victor: Without a self-help bookBeatrix Jacqueline Coetzee13. The evaluation of the Gender Dysphoric patientFranco Colin14. Dissociation: A South African modelA M Dikobe, C K Mataboge, L M Motlana, B F Sokudela, C Kruger15. Designated smoking rooms...and other "Secret sins" of psychiatry: Tobacco cessation approaches in the severely mentally illCharl Els16. Dual diagnosis: Implications for treatment and prognosisCharl Els17. Body weight, glucose metabolism and the new generation antipsychoticsRobin Emsley18. Neurological abnormalities in first episode Schizophrenia: Temporal stability and clinical and outcome correlatesRobin Emsley, H Jadri Turner, Piet P Oosthuizen, Jonathan Carr19. Mythology of depressive illnesses among AfricansSenathi Fisha20. Substance use and High school dropoutAlan J. Flisher, Lorraine Townsend, Perpetual Chikobvu, Carl Lombard, Gary King21. Psychosis and Psychotic disordersA E Gangat 22. Vulnerability of individuals in a family system to develop a psychiatric disorderGerhard Grundling and Eugene Allers23. What does it Uberhaupt mean to "Integrate"?Jürgen Harms24. Research issues in South African child and adolescent psychiatryS M Hawkridge25. New religious movements and psychiatry: The Good NewsV H Hitzeroth26. The pregnant heroin addict: Integrating theory and practice in the development and provision of a service for this client groupV H Hitzeroth, L Kramer27. Autism spectrum disorderErick Hollander28. Recent advances and management in treatment resistanceEric Hollander29. Bipolar mixed statesM. Leigh Janet30. Profile of acute psychiatric inpatients tested for HIV - Helen Jospeh Hospital, JohannesburgA B R Janse van Rensburg31. ADHD - Using the art of film-making as an education mediumShabeer Ahmed Jeeva32. Treatment of adult ADHD co-morbiditiesShabeer Ahmed Jeeva33. Needs and services at ward one, Valkenberg HospitalDr J. A. Joska, Prof. A.J. Flisher34. Unanswered questions in the adequate treatment of depressionModerator: Dr Andre F JoubertExpert: Prof. Tony Hale35. Unanswered questions in treatment resistant depressionModerator: Dr Andre F JoubertExpert: Prof. Sidney Kennedy36. Are mentally ill people dangerous?Sen Z Kaliski37. The child custody circusSean Z. Kaliski38. The appropriatenes of certification of patients to psychiatric hospitalsV. N. Khanyile39. HIV/Aids Psychosocial responses and ethical dilemmasFred Kigozi40. Sex and PsychiatryB Levinson41. Violence and abuse in psychiatric in-patient institutions: A South African perspectiveMarilyn Lucas, John Weinkoove, Dean Stevenson42. Public health sector expenditure for mental health - A baseline study for South AfricaE N Madela-Mntla43. HIV in South Africa: Depression and CD4 countM Y H Moosa, F Y Jeenah44. Clinical strategies in dealing with treatment resistant schizophreniaPiet Oosthuizen, Dana Niehaus, Liezl Koen45. Buprenorphine/Naloxone maintenance in office practice: 18 months and 170 patients after the American releaseTed Parran Jr, Chris Adelman46. Integration of Pharmacotherapy for Opioid dependence into general psychiatric practice: Naltrexone, Methadone and Buprenorphine/ NaloxoneTed Parran47. Our African understanding of individulalism and communitarianismWillie Pienaar48. Healthy ageing and the prevention of DementiaFelix Potocnik, Susan van Rensburg, Christianne Bouwens49. Indigenous plants and methods used by traditional African healers for treatinf psychiatric patients in the Soutpansberg Area (Research was done in 1998)Ramovha Muvhango Rachel50. Symptom pattern & associated psychiatric disorders in subjects with possible & confirmed 22Q11 deletional syndromeJ.L. Roos, H.W. Pretorius, M. Karayiorgou51. Duration of antidepressant treatment: How long is long enough? How long is too longSteven P Roose52. A comparison study of early non-psychotic deviant behaviour in the first ten years of life, in Afrikaner patients with Schizophrenia, Schizo-affective disorder and Bipolar disorderMartin Scholtz, Melissa Janse van Rensburg, J. Louw Roos53. Treatment, treatment issues, and prevention of PTSD in women: An updateSoraya Seedat54. Fron neural networks to clinical practiceM Spitzer55. Opening keynote presentation: The art and science of PsychiatryM Spitzer56. The future of Pharmacotherapy for anxiety disordersDan J. Stein57. Neuropsychological deficits pre and post Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) thrice a week: A report of four casesUgash Subramaney, Yusuf Moosa58. Prevalence of and risk factors for Tradive Dyskinesia in a Xhosa population in the Eastern CapeDave Singler, Betty D. Patterson, Sandi Willows59. Eating disorders: Addictive disorders?Christopher Paul Szabo60. Ethical challenges and dilemmas of research in third world countriesGodfrey B. Tangwa61. The interface between Neurology and Psychiatry with specific focus on Somatoform dissociative disordersMichael Trimble62. Prevalence and correlates of depression and anxiety in doctors and teachersH Van der Bijl, P Oosthuizen63. Ingrid Jonker: A psychological analysisL. M. van der Merwe64. The strange world we live in, and the nature of the human subjectVasi van Deventer65. Art in psychiatry: Appendix or brain stem?C W van Staden66. Medical students on what "Soft skills" are about before and after curriculum reformC W van Staden, P M Joubert, A-M Bergh, G E Pickworth, W J Schurink, R R du Preez, J L Roos, C Kruger, S V Grey, B G Lindeque67. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) - Medical management. Methylphenidate (Ritalin) or Atomoxetine (Strattera)Andre Venter68. A comprehensive guide to the treatment of adults with ADHDW J C Verbeeck69. Treatment of Insomnia: Stasis of the Art?G C Verster70. Are prisoners vulnerable research participants?Merryll Vorster71. Psychiatric disorders in the gymMerryl Vorster72. Ciprales: Effects on anxiety symptoms in Major Depressive DisorderBruce Lydiard

This article aims to explain how the contestation of social spaces in the lives of the plural society at Lasem it processes dynamically. It is a pattern of space contestation that leads to the affirmation and strengthening of identity or a pattern that leads to the fusion of identities. As a consequence, the first pattern creates social friction or conflict. On the contrary, the second pattern is directed towards acculturation and assimilation of culture which can strengthen social harmony. The important finding of this research is that it can be known the real issue, so that problems related to all parties can be found a solution as well as a resolution. This research also proves that social mechanism preparedness is considered urgent to prevent negative excesses (negative things) from the space contestation. So the space contestation that occurs dynamically proves that the plural society in Lasem has found a valuable experience, namely social resilience in facing all possible emergence of social disintegration.Keywords: contestation, space, social mechanisms and an plural society REFERENCE: Abercrombie, Nicholas, at.all., 2010. Kamus Sosiologi, Terj. Dwi Agus M. Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. Adhyanggono, GM. ad.all., 2009. Budaya Tionghoa Lasem Dalam Peta Tata Pemukiman, Tradisi, Peran Dan Relasi Gender, dalam Angelina Ika Rahutami (Peny.), ”Kekuatan Lokal Sebagai Roh Pembangunan Jawa Tengah”, Semarang: UNIKA Soegijapranata. Amirudin, 2017. Multikulturalisme dalam Produksi Budaya Seni Batik di Lasem, dalam; ”60 Tahun Antropologi Indonesia; Refleksi Kontribusi Antropologi untuk Indonesia”, Jakarta; Pusat Kajian Antropologi, Departemen Antropologi FISIP UI, 2017. Atabik, Ahmad, 2016. Percampuran Budaya Jawa dan Cina: Harmoni dan Toleransi Beragama Masyarakat Lasem, Jurnal: Sabda, Volume 11, Tahun 2016, pp. 1–11. Azra, Azyumardi, 2011. Nasionalisme, Etnisitas, Dan Agama di Indonesia: Perspektif Islam Dan Ketahanan Budaya, dalam Thung Ju Lan dan M. Azzam Manan (Ed.), ”Nasionalisme Dan Ketahanan Budaya di Indonesia”, Jakarta: LIPI & Yayasan Obor Indonesia. BPS. 2012. Data Monografi Kecamatan Lasem Semester II Tahun 2012, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS. 2017. Data UPT Pendidikan Kabupaten Rembang Tahun 2017, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS Rembang, 2017. Lasem Dalam Angka Tahun 2017, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. BPS Rembang, 2018. Lasem Dalam Angka Tahun 2018, Rembang: Pemkab. Rembang. Daradjati, 2013. Geger Pacinan 1740–1743: Persekutuan Tionghoa – Jawa Melawan VOC, Jakarta: Kompas. Hardiman, F. Budi, 2002 “Belajar dari Politik Multikulturalisme”, pengantar Will Kymlicka, ”Kewargaan Kultural”, Jakarta: LP3ES, 2002. Hartono, Samuel & Handinoto, Lasem: Kota Kuno Di Pantai Utara Jawa Yang Bernuasa Cina, artikel dalam: http://fportfolio. petra.ac.id/user_files/81-005/LASEM.pdf, diunduh pada tanggal 02 Agustus 2018, pukul: 14.23 wib. Hefner, Robert, W., 2001, The Politics of Multiculturalism: Pluralism and Citizenship in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Honolulu: University of Hawai Press. Jary, David & Jary, Yulia, 1991. Collins Dictionary of Sociology, London: Harper Collins Publishers. Khamzah, R.P. 1858. Cerita (Sejarah) Lasem, Katurun/Kajiplak Dening R. Panji Karsono (1920), dalam buku Badra Santi, Rumpakanipun Mpu Santribadra Nurhajarini, Dwi Ratna, ad.all. 2015. Akulturasi Lintas Zaman di Lasem: Perspektif Sejarah dan Budaya (Kurun Niaga – Sekarang), Yogyakarta: BPNB-Yogyakarta. Onghokham, Anti Cina, Kapitalisme Cina dan Gerakan Cina, Jakarta: Komunitas Bambu, 2008. Parekh, Bhikhu, 2012. Rethingking Multiculturalism: Keberagaman Budaya dan Teori Politik, diterjemahkan dari “Rethingking Multiculturalism, Cuktural Diversity dan Political Theory”, Yogyakarta: Kanisius. Pemkab. Rembang, 2012. Monografi Kecamatan Lasem Tahun 2012. Poloma, Margaret M. 2010. Sosiologi Konterporer, Jakarta: Rajawali Press. Purdey, Jemma, 2013. Kekerasan Anti Tionghoa Di Indonesia 1996–1999, Denpasar: Pustaka Larasan. Putra. Ade Yustirandy dan Sartini, 2016. Batik Lasem Sebagai Simbul Akulturasi Nilai-nilai Budaya Jawa-Cina, dalam; Jurnal Jantra Vol. 11, No. 2, Desember 2016. Ritzer, George & Goodman, Douglas J., 2011. Teori Sosiologi Modern, Jakarta: Prenada Media. Saifullah, Ahmad 2008. Makna Spiritual Arsitektur Masjid, paparan makalah SITI Angkatan Ke-4, dipresentasikan pada Kamis, 17 Juli 2008, Tidak Diterbitkan. Slattery, Martin, 2003. Key Ideas in Sociology, Delta Place Cheltenham: Nelson Thomas Ltd. Soekanto, Soejono. 1985. Karifan Masyarakat Dalam Penegolaan Kseserasian Sosial Ditinjau Dari Segi Hukum, dalam Majalah Bulanan Tahun VII, edisi No. 11/Agustus 1985, pp. 824-830. Suaedy, Ahmad, 2018. Gus Dur, Islam Nusantara, dan Kewarganegaraan Bineka: Penyelesaian Konflik Aceh dan Papua 1999–2001, Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Suryadinata, Leo, 2003. Kebijakan Negara Indonesia terhadap Etnik Tionghoa: Dari Asimilasi ke Multikulturalisme”, Jurnal Antropologi Indonesia, Nomor: 71, Tahun 2003. Suryadinata, Leo, 2010. Akhirya Diakui Agama Konghucu dan Agama Budha di Pasca-Suharto, dalam, ”Setelah Air Mata Kering” (Ed. I. Wibowo & Thung Ju Lan), Jakarta: Gramedia. Slattery, Martin, 2003. Key Ideas in Sociology, Delta Place Cheltenham: Nelson Thomas Ltd. Tan, Charlene, 2014. Educative Tradition and Islamic Schools in Indonesia, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies-14 (2014). Tilaar, H.A.R. 2007. Mengindonesia: Etnisitas dan Identitas Bangsa Indonesia, Jakarta: Rineka Cipta. Tim Peneliti, ”Laporan Survei Nasional”: Kerjasama Wahid Foundation dengan Lembaga Survei Indonesia dan UN Women, Januari 2018. Turner, Jonathan H. dan Alexandra Maryanski, 2010. Fungsionalisme, Yogyakarta: Pustaka Pelajar. Unjiya, M. Akrom, 2008. “Lasem Negeri Dampo Awang: Sejarah Yang Terlupakan“, Yogyakarta: Fokmas, Veeger, K.J., 1985. Realitas Sosial: Refleksi Filsafat Sosial Atas Hubungan Individu-Masyarakat Dalam Cakrawala Sejarah Sosiologi, Jakarta: Gramedia. Wallace, Ruth A. dan Wolf, Alison, 2006. Contemporary Sociological Theory: Expanding The Classical Tradition, -6th ed., Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. Wiroutomo, Paulus, 2012. Integrasi Sosial Masyarakat Indonesia: Teori dan Konsep, dalam Paulus Wiroutomo, ad.all., ”Sistem Sosial Indonesia”, Jakarta: UI Press & Lab-Sosio. Sumber Internet Surat Kabar Harian “Kompas”, edisi; 15 Pebruari 2014. Surat Kabar Harian “Suara Merdeka”, edisi: 23 Oktober 2019. "Said Aqil Singgung Sentimen Agama dan 212 di Depan Anies", sumber; https://www.cnnindo nesia.com/nasional/20191022212949-20-441966/said-aqil-sing gung-sentimen-agama-dan-212-di-depan-anies, diunduh pada tanggal 23 Oktober 2019. Pukul:07.43 wib.

The introduction of basic computer media for early childhood is very important because it is one of the skills that children need in this century. Need to support parents and teachers in developing the implementation of the use of computer technology at home or at school. This study aims to determine and understand the state of learning conducted based on technology. This research uses a qualitative approach with a case study model. This study involved 15 children and 5 parents. Data obtained through interviews (children and parents) and questionnaires for parents. The results showed that children who were introduced to and taught basic computers earlier became more skilled in learning activities. Suggestions for further research to be more in-depth both qualitatively and quantitatively explore the use of the latest technology to prepare future generations who have 21st century skills. Keywords: Parental Perspective; Computer Learning; Early childhood education References: Alkhawaldeh, M., Hyassat, M., Al-Zboon, E., & Ahmad, J. (2017). The Role of Computer Technology in Supporting Children’s Learning in Jordanian Early Years Education. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 31(3), 419–429. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2017.1319444 Ariputra. (2018). Need Assessment of Learning Inclusive Program for Students in Non-formal Early Childhood. Early Childhood Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.23917/ecrj.v1i1.6582 Atkinson, K., & Biegun, L. (2017). An Uncertain Tale: Alternative Conceptualizations of Pedagogical Leadership. Journal of Childhood Studies. Aubrey, C., & Dahl, S. (2014). The confidence and competence in information and communication technologies of practitioners, parents and young children in the Early Years Foundation Stage. Early Years, 34(1), 94–108. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2013.792789 Barenthien, J., Oppermann, E., Steffensky, M., & Anders, Y. (2019). Early science education in preschools – the contribution of professional development and professional exchange in team meetings. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal. https://doi.org/DOI: 10.1080/1350293X.2019.1651937, https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2019.1651937 Bredekamp, S., & Copple, C. (2009). Developmentally Appropriate Practice in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8. Chen, R. S., & Tu, C. C. (2018). Parents’ attitudes toward the perceived usefulness of Internet-related instruction in preschools. Social Psychology of Education, 21(2), 477–495. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-017-9424-8 Christensen, R. (2002). Effects of technology integration education on the attitudes of teachers and students. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 34(4), 411–433. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2002.10782359 Couse, L. J., & Chen, D. W. (2010). A tablet computer for young children? Exploring its viability for early childhood education. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 43(1), 75–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/15391523.2010.10782562 Creswell, J. W. (2012). Educational Research Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research(4th ed.; P. A. Smith, Ed.). Boston: Pearson. Davis, J. M. (2014). environmental education and the future. (May). https://doi.org/10.1023/A Dhieni, N., Hartati, S., & Wulan, S. (2019). Evaluation of Content Curriculum in Kindergarten. Jurnal Pendidikan Usia Dini. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21009/10.21009/JPUD.131.06 Dong, C., & Newman, L. (2016). Ready, steady … pause: integrating ICT into Shanghai preschools. International Journal of Early Years Education, 24(2), 224–237. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2016.1144048 Dunn, J., Gray, C., Moffett, P., & Mitchell, D. (2018). ‘It’s more funner than doing work’: Children’s perspectives on using tablet computers in the early years of school. Early Child Development and Care, 188(6), 819–831. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1238824 Hadzigianni, M., & Margetts, K. (2014). Parents’ Beliefs and Evaluations of Young Children’s Computer Use. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood. https://doi.org/doi/pdf/10.1177/183693911403900415 Huda, M., Hehsan, A., Jasmi, K. A., Mustari, M. I., Shahrill, M., Basiron, B., & Gassama, S. K. (2017). Empowering children with adaptive technology skills: Careful engagement in the digital information age. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 9(3), 693–708. Ihmeideh, F. (2010). The role of computer technology in teaching reading and writing: Preschool teachers’ beliefs and practices. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 24(1), 60–79. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568540903439409 Jack, C., & Higgins, S. (2018). What is educational technology and how is it being used to support teaching and learning in the early years ? International Journal of Early Years Education, 0(0), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2018.1504754 Janisse, H. C., Li, X., Bhavnagri, N. P., Esposito, C., & Stanton, B. (2018). A Longitudinal Study of the Effect of Computers on the Cognitive Development of Low-Income African American Preschool Children. Early Education and Development, 29(2), 229–244. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2017.1399000 Karjalainen.S., A., Pu, E. H., & Maija, A. (2019). Dialogues of Joy: Shared Moments of Joy Between Teachers and Children in Early Childhood Education Settings. International Journal of Early Childhood. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13158-019-00244-5 Kerckaert, S., Vanderlinde, R., & van Braak, J. (2015). The role of ICT in early childhood education: Scale development and research on ICT use and influencing factors. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 23(2), 183–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2015.1016804 Ko, K. (2014). The Use of Technology in Early Childhood Classrooms: An Investigation of Teachers’ Attitudes. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences, 13(3), 807–819. Kong, S. C. (2018). Parents’ perceptions of e-learning in school education: implications for the partnership between schools and parents. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 27(1), 15–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475939X.2017.1317659 Livingstone, S. (2012). Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in education. Oxford Review of Education, 38(1), 9–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2011.577938 Martin, E., R. Alvarez, Pablo, D., Haya, A., Fernández‐Gaullés, Cristina, … Quintanar, H. (2018). Impact of using interactive devices in Spanish early childhoodeducation public schools. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning. McCloskey, M., Johnson, S. L., Benz, C., Thompson, D. A., Chamberlin, B., Clark, L., & Bellows, L. L. (2018). Parent Perceptions of Mobile Device Use Among Preschool-Aged Children in Rural Head Start Centers. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, 50(1), 83-89.e1. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneb.2017.03.006 McDaniel, B. T., & Radesky, J. S. (2018). Technoference: Parent Distraction With Technology and Associations With Child Behavior Problems. Child Development, 89(1), 100–109. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12822 Nikolopoulou, K., & Gialamas, V. (2015). ICT and play in preschool: early childhood teachers’ beliefs and confidence. International Journal of Early Years Education, 23(4), 409–425. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2015.1078727 Nolan, J., & McBride, M. (2014). Beyond gamification: reconceptualizing game-based learning in early childhood environments. Information Communication and Society, 17(5), 594–608. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365 Paciga, K. A., Lisy, J. G., & Teale, W. H. (2013). Better Start Before Kindergarten: computer Technology, Interactive Media and the Education of Preschoolers. Asia-Pacific Journal of Research in Early Childhood Education, 85–104. Palaiologou, I. (2016). Children under five and digital technologies: implications for early years pedagogy. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 24(1), 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.929876 Plowman, L. (2015). Researching young children’s everyday uses of technology in the family home. Interacting with Computers, 27(1), 36–46. https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwu031 Plowman, L., & McPake, J. (2013). Seven Myths About Young Children and Technology. Childhood Education, 89(1), 27–33. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2013.757490 Sageide, B. M. (2016). Norwegian early childhood teachers’ stated use of subject-related activities with children, and their focus on science, technology, environmental issues and sustainability. International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education. https://doi.org/11250/2435060/955-11623-1-PB Tate, T. P., Warschauer, M., & Kim, Y. S. G. (2019). Learning to compose digitally: the effect of prior computer use and keyboard activity on NAEP writing. Reading and Writing, 32(8), 2059–2082. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-019-09940-z Theodotou, E. (2010). Using Computers in Early Years Education: What Are the Effects on Children’s Development? Some Suggestions Concerning Beneficial Computer Practice. Online Submission, (December). UNESCO. Rethinking Education. Towards a global common good. , (2015). Vartuli, S., Bolz, C., & Wilson, C. (2014). A Learning Combination: Coaching with CLASS and the Project Approach. Early Childhood Research & Practice Journal, 1–16. Vittrup, B., Snider, S., Rose, K. K., & Rippy, J. (2016). Parental perceptions of the role of media and technology in their young children’s lives. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 14(1), 43–54. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14523749 Waal, E. D. (2019). Fundamental Movement Skills and Academic Performance of 5- to 6-Year-Old Preschoolers. Early Childhood Education Journal, 455–456. https://doi.org///doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00936-6 Wang, Q. (2008). A generic model for guiding the integration of ICT into teaching and learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 45(4), 411–419. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703290802377307 Wolfe, S., & Flewitt, R. (2010). New technologies, new multimodal literacy practices and young children’s metacognitive development. Cambridge Journal of Education, 40(4), 387–399. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2010.526589 YurtaNılgün, Ö., & Kalburan, C. (2011). Early childhood teachers’ thoughts and practices about the use of computers in early childhood education. Early Childhood Educaiton: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Yusmawati, & Lubis, J. (2019). The Implementation of Curriculum by Using Motion Pattern. Jurnal Pendidikan Usia Dini. https://doi.org/DOI:https://doi.org/10.21009/10.21009/JPUD.131.14

The present volume marks the completion of a large research project by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), focused on the northern part of the Palaeoproterozoic Nagssugtoqidian orogen of central West Greenland, and carried out by a team of Danish and international participants. The project comprised geological mapping as well as structural, geochronological, geochemical and economic geological studies. This volume contains reports on both Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic geology as well as a study of neotectonic brittle structures. The field work was carried out in 2000-2003 in the region between Nordre Strømfjord and Jakobshavn Isfjord (see e.g. van Gool & Piazolo 2006, this volume, fig. 1). The project had two immediate purposes, namely to establish an overview of the mineral resource potential of supracrustal rocks in the region between 66° and 70°15'N, and produce four new geological sheets in the Survey's 1:100 000 map series. The first collection of papers about the Nagssugtoqidian orogen, published by the Geological Survey of Greenland (GGU, now part of GEUS), dates back to 1979 (Korstgård 1979). The investigations in this period were mainly based on field descriptions and structural analysis of coastal areas in the southern and central parts of the orogen, combined with limited petrographical, palaeomagnetic and geochronological studies; the results also comprised the first 1:100 000 geological map from within the Nagssugtoqidian orogen (Olesen 1984). The Proterozoic age of the orogen had been established, but it was believed that most, if not all of the quartzofeldspathic basement gneisses were of Archaean origin. Subsequent work in the Nagssugtoqidian orogen by GGU in the 1980s showed that besides Archaean orthogneisses and supracrustal rocks, the central part of the orogen also comprises the root zone of a Palaeoproterozoic magmatic arc and associated panels of Palaeoproterozoic volcanic and metasedimentary rocks (Kalsbeek et al. 1987). These results were confirmed during further investigations by the Danish Lithosphere Centre (DLC) in 1994-1999, and the plate-tectonic collisional history of the southern and central Nagssugtoqidian orogen was described in detail (van Gool et al. 2002). However, these studies added little to previous knowledge of the northern parts of the orogen in the Kangaatsiaq-Aasiaat-Qasigiannguit region, knowledge that was largely based on coastal reconnaissance by Henderson (1969) at the time when the entire orogen was still believed to consist of Archaean rocks. Another project preceding the present work was carried out by GGU in 1988-1991 immediately north of the Nagssugtoqidian orogen, in the southernmost part of the likewise Palaeoproterozoic Rinkian fold belt (Disko Bugt project, Kalsbeek 1999). It was shown that also the latter region comprises Palaeoproterozoic (meta)sedimentary rocks, and that most of the Archaean basement is strongly overprinted by Palaeoproterozoic structures that were formed during overall W- or NW-directed lateral tectonic transport. Although these structures might be related to similar structures in the Nagssugtoqidian orogen, the relationship between the Nagssugtoqidian orogen and the Rinkian fold belt remained speculative. The only previous economic geological study of regional extent in central West Greenland was an airborne reconnaissance study supplemented by local field work, which was carried out in the early 1960s by Kryolitselskabet Øresund A/S. This work resulted in the discovery of a massive sulphide deposit at Naternaq (Lersletten), which was studied again in some detail in 2001 by the Survey (Østergaard et al. 2002) but not reported on in the present volume. The present volume comprises 12 papers with topics ranging geochronologically from mid-Archaean to Palaeogene, and geographically from the southern Nagssugtoqidian foreland to the central part of the Rinkian fold belt. Many of the papers deal with the northern part of the Nagssugtoqidian orogen and are related to the recent field work in that region, while a few contributions are rooted in DLC- or other projects. The papers have been arranged in approximate chronological order and are grouped in terms of their main subjects. The two first papers, by Hollis et al. and Moyen & Watt, deal with Archaean supra- and infracrustal rocks in the northern Nagssugtoqidian orogen: their origin, ages, and structural and metamorphic evolution. These papers provide insight into the age and origin of the continental crustal orthogneisses and granites that underlie most of the region, and discuss the relationships between the supracrustal and plutonic components, using zircon U-Pb age determinations and major and trace element geochemical characteristics. Also the question of Palaeoproterozoic tectonic overprint is discussed, with the conclusion from both study areas that most of the observed structures are Archaean. The third paper with focus on Archaean geology, by Stendal et al., describes a small gold prospect at Attu likewise in the northern Nagssugtoqidian orogen, and discusses the age of the prospect and its host rocks using Pb-Pb geochronology of magnetite. It is concluded that the host rocks at Attu may be as old as 3162 ± 43 Ma, and that the gold prospect itself is around 2650 Ma in age. The fourth paper, by Mayborn & Lesher, is a thorough review of the Kangâmiut dyke swarm in the southern Nagssugtoqidian orogen and its foreland. It includes new whole-rock and mineral chemical data, and a list of sampling sites and corresponding field data. The emplacement mechanism and depth of the dyke swarm are discussed in detail, and it is concluded that the dykes were emplaced during the initial rifting prior to the Nagssugtoqidian collision and that they are unrelated to subduction processes (contrary to the belief by some previous authors). The next three papers provide geochronological constraints on the ages of supra- and infracrustal rocks and the deformation and metamorphism in the northern Nagssugtoqidian orogen, and on late orogenic uplift in the central Rinkian fold belt. In the first of these papers Thrane & Connelly employ zircon U-Pb age determinations (mainly using the laser ICP-MS method), and for the first time provide unequivocal documentation that the Naternaq supracrustal belt is of Palaeoproterozoic age. Other zircon age data from a synkinematic granite southeast of Kangaatsiaq show that the large fold structures in this region are of Archaean age. The subsequent paper by Stendal et al. presents Pb-Pb ages and isotopic signatures of magnetite in amphibolites; the obtained ages are younger than 1800 Ma and are related to cooling of the orogen. Stepwise leaching Pb-Pb ages of monazite and allanite in pegmatites fall in the range of 1750-1800 Ma, and are interpreted to date the emplacement of these rocks. The third paper in this group, by Sidgren et al., deals with new 40Ar/39Ar ages of around 1790 Ma (hornblende) and 1680 Ma (muscovite) from Archaean and Palaeoproterozoic rocks in the central Rinkian fold belt, which are interpreted as orogenic cooling ages. The hornblende ages are significantly older than such hornblende ages previously obtained from the central and northern Nagssugtoqidian orogen, pointing to different uplift histories in the two regions. This may in turn suggest that the Rinkian continental collision preceded that in the Nagssugtoqidian orogen. Four of the remaining five papers deal with the Nagssugtoqidian structural evolution. In the first of these, van Gool & Piazolo present a new method of structural analysis, where a geographical information system (GIS) is used as a framework for visualisation and analysis of large amounts of structural data. The paper graphically presents an overview of thousands of data points within an area of approximately 160 × 180 km in the central and northern parts of the Nagssugtoqidian orogen. This interesting data set points directly towards the two next papers, where crustal-scale structures in the same region and their origin are discussed: Sørensen et al. address the prominent Nordre Strømfjord shear zone just south of this block, and describes the structural and metasomatic transition into the shear zone by means of aeromagnetic and lithological map patterns and geochemical data. Another paper, by Mazur et al., addresses a prominent break in the structural pattern within the Kangaatsiaq-Aasiaat area, where the southern part acted as a rigid block during the Nagssugtoqidian orogeny and thus preserved its Archaean structure. The fourth paper in this group, by Korstgård et al., combines rock and aeromagnetic data to discuss the relationship between structure, metamorphic facies and total magnetic field intensity anomalies in the southern Nagssugtoqidian orogen. The authors show that static metamorphic boundaries are gradual, whereas boundaries along deformation zones are abrupt. The last paper, by Wilson et al., is a novel remote sensing and field geological analysis of onshore brittle structures related to the complex Ungava fault zone in the Davis Strait, which developed during the Cretaceous-Palaeogene opening of the Labrador Sea - Davis Strait - Baffin Bay seaway. The study area is located in the central Nagssugtoqidian orogen, and the authors carefully establish a distinction between old Nagssugtoqidian and younger structures in the basement rocks and identify five main sets of young lineaments. They conclude that the onshore fault patterns are predominantly of strike-slip nature, and that they reflect the stress fields that governed the opening of the seaway. Acknowledgements The editors are grateful to the 14 external reviewers, each of whom reviewed one or more of the individual papers, for their thorough and constructive work.

I. A part of the West Greenland current flows westwards across the Davis Strait and meets the Canadian (Baffin Land) current to form the Labrador current which follows southwards the shelf and slope of Labrador Coast {figure I). Meeting the northern edge of the Newfoundland Banks, the Labrador current splits in a minor western branch running along the Avalon Peninsula and a major one proceeding south along the eastern edge of the shelf down to the Tail of the Grand Banks. There it meets the Atlantic current which very often forms a prominent westward salient at about 45°N. and 47 - 48°W. (figure IX). This salient tends to deflect and turn back east or northeastwards a variable portion of the major branch. The turning point and the volume of the deflected stream are subject to change according to the position and importance of the Atlantic salient. It is estimated that the West Greenland current and the Canadian current join respectively in a 60% and 40% ratio. The major eastern branch in the Grand Banks region amounts to 80 to 90%, splitting in turn about fifty-fifty in an eastward stream flowing just north of Flemish Cap and the current proceeding southwards along the edge of the Grand Banks. One of the most striking features of the Labrador current is its banded structure. In the area where it forms there are at least three bands (figure VII) : 1. a fresh and very cold inshore band made of polar and coastal waters ; 2. an offshore stream in the Canadian current carrying Baffin Bay waters ; and, 3. — further seawards — the West Greenland portion whose waters are mild in temperature and possess Atlantic salinity. Two cold walls mark the sharp limits between these bodies of water. Along the Labrador Coast the banding agrees pretty well with the submarine topography ; an inshore slow, cold and fresh stream is confined to the continental shelf while an offshore fast, mild and salted current follows the edge of the shelf and slope. Both exhibit shoreward and seaward salients in agreement to the shelf varying in width. In the Grand Banks area — apart from the well known Newfoundland cold wall between the contrary Labrador and Atlantic currents (see figure XII, A) — there is a marked cold wall inside the eastwards proceeding current between the bulk of the Atlantic waters and that part of Labrador waters that have been deflected by the Atlantic salient and incorporated to the eastward drift (see figures X and XIII). The point of annual cycle and long term temperature and volume variations is not discussed here in full. Some words are devoted to the vernal warming and the maintaining jar into the summer of cold waters on the central part of the Grand Banks (figure XIV). II. Three kinds of sea ice occur along the Labrador Coast and the Atlantic Coast of Newfoundland : 1. the bay or winter ice ; 2. the drift ice ; 3. the icebergs. The bay or winter ice forms every winter and disappears during spring time. The inner parts of the bays of Northern Labrador are frozen over by the middle of December while the offshore inlets and archipelagos are jammed much later, say in the course of January. A tentative map has been sketched to show the date of occurrence of the winter ice. Ice grows till it reaches a width of between 10 and 40 miles, but its thickness never exceeds three feet or so. The bay ice is subject to break during stormy weather and therefore is able to feed largely the drift ice in the heart of winter. Drift ice is made up of both local winter ice and — mainly in the first summer months —• old arctic ice. Due to age and hummockying processes the latter is characterized by heavy pieces and floes which often reach a thickness of 30 to 50 feet. Although the main track of the drift ice is governed by the Labrador current the actual short-range movements are controlled by the changing wind conditions. Four examples of drifting fields are reported. Wind control is pretty well illustrated by sketch-maps XVIII and XIX which show the appearance, deterioration and receding of ice fields carried by the Labrador current in the vicinity of Newfoundland's northern and eastern coasts. The disappearance of an ice field drifting off Southern Labrador and blocking the eastern entrance to the Strait of Belle-Isle — as shown on figure XX — is typical of the features marking the end of the ice season. Figure XXI represents heavy arctic pieces and drift ice of local origin closely packed in the central arc of the Labrador Coast before being swept away by land-breeze. Because of these changing conditions it seems difficult to de fine an average annual cycle of drift ice. The maximum limits are reached by the middle of April ; at that time ice extends as jar south as the 47 th or the 46 th parallel, but normally it keeps off the coast south of St. John s, this harbour being very seldom closed to navigation for more than ten successive days. Tentative is made to show in sketch-maps the average conditions in winter (figure XVI) as well as the receding of the drifting fields and tongues during spring and summer months (figure XVII). The story of the bergs from the parent glaciers of West Greenland down to their melting place around the Banks begins to be a well known one (see figure XXII). According to their very deep draft the bergs are less subject than the drift ice to be driven by the surface and subsurface wind wurrents. Mortality in Baffin Bay, melting and grounding on the Labrador Coast, differential velocity of inshore and offshore bands of the current, location of the point of partition between the eastern and western branches are discussed in order to explain the observed distribution of bergs in the Grand Banks region, jour typical patterns of which are shown on figure XXIII. III. An attempt has been made to show the division between ice and navigation at selected places along the coasts watered by the Labrador current. Figure XXIV is only tentative since the actual conditions due to changing weather often differ strongly from the average ones. When possible, drift ice season has been distinguished. The relatively favoured position of the St. John's harbour appears both on figure XXIV and figures XVI and XVIII. Along the Labrador Coast and in the northern part of the island of Newfoundland, dog sleigh is often the only means of transportation in winter, when fiat bay ice is wide enough and has not been hummockied or broken by stormy weather. Main sleigh tracks and their alternatives are governed by physical conditions as well as winter settlement pattern and therefore are seldom subject to change. Examples of sleigh tracks have been taken in Northern and Central Labrador (figures XXV and XXVI). In the populated areas of Northeastern Newfoundland where fast access to markets and mass transportation are needed, sleighing in winter is no more possible. It can be said that these economic conditions are the main stimulus forroad building in the island. More and more « outports » are progressively freed from backward means of transportation and yin summertime yfrom the navigation itself too. The closing of navigation in the Bay of Exploits (the innermost part of Notre Dame Bay) results in the railway between the said bay and St. John s being peculiarly overloaded in winter, since paper from Bishop's Falls and ore concentrates from Buchans can no more be shipped through Botwood on the Bay of Exploits {figure XXVII).

This study aimed to explore the perceived barriers to physical activity among college students Study Design: Qualitative research design Eight focus group discussions on 67 college students aged 18-24 years (48 females, 19 males) was conducted on College premises. Data were analysed using inductive approach. Participants identified a number of obstacles to physical activity. Perceived barriers emerged from the analysis of the data addressed the different dimensions of the socio-ecological framework. The result indicated that the young adults perceived substantial amount of personal, social and environmental factors as barriers such as time constraint, tiredness, stress, family control, safety issues and much more. Understanding the barriers and overcoming the barriers at this stage will be valuable. Health professionals and researchers can use this information to design and implement interventions, strategies and policies to promote the participation in physical activity. This further can help the students to deal with those barriers and can help to instil the habit of regular physical activity in the later adult years.

Nevitte, Neil, André Blais, Elisabeth Gidengil and Richard Nadeau. Unsteady State: The 1997 Canadian Federal Election. By Duff Spafford 177Arend, Sylvie et Christiane Rabier. Le processus politique. Environnement, prise de décision et pouvoir. Par Christine Bout de l'An 178Cairns, Alan C., John C. Courtney, Peter MacKinnon, Hans J. Michelmann and David E. Smith, eds. Citizenship, Diversity, and Pluralism: Canadian and Comparative Perspectives. By Idil Boran 180Benoit, William L. Seeing Spots: A Functional Analysis of Presidential Advertisements, 1952-1996. By Richard Jenkins 182Reichmann, Rebecca, ed. Race in Contemporary Brazil: From Indifference to Inequality. By Ronald Schmidt, Sr. 183McLaren, Peter. Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution. By Marco A. Navarro-Génie 184Laffan, Michael. The Resurrection of Ireland: The Sinn Fein Party 1916-1923. By Gretchen Macmillan 186Schmitter, Philippe C. How to Democratize the European Union . . . and Why Bother? By Amir Abedi 187Mandelbaum, Michael, ed. The New European Diasporas: National Minorities and Conflict in Eastern Europe. By Pál Dunay 189Guibernau, Monserrat. Nations without States: Political Communities in a Global Age. By Margaret Moore 192Arneil, Barbara. Politics and Feminism. By Judith Squires 193Miller, David. Principles of Social Justice. By Annabelle Lever 195Carens, Joseph H. Culture, Citizenship, and Community: A Contextual Exploration of Justice as Evenhandedness. By Monique Deveaux 197Joppke, Christian and Steven Lukes, eds. Multicultural Questions. By Alan Patten 198Steinhart, Eric. On Nietzsche. By Craig Beam 200Verma, Vidhu. Justice, Equality and Community: An Essay in Marxist Political Theory. By Brian Caterino 201Stoett, Peter. Human and Global Security: An Exploration of Terms. By Lowell Ewert 203Clement, Norris C., Gustavo del Castillo Vera, James Gerber, William A. Kerr, Alan J. MacFadyen, Stanford Shedd, Eduardo Zepeda and Diane Alarcón. North American Economic Integration: Theory and Practice. By Tony Porter 204Enloe, Cynthia. Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives. By Maya Eichler 205Youngs, Gillian. International Relations in a Global Age: A Conceptual Challenge. By Sandra Whitworth 207Paul, T.V. and John A. Hall, eds. International Order and the Future of World Politics. By Kim Richard Nossal 208Deng, Yong and Fei-Ling Wang, eds. In the Eyes of the Dragon: China Views the World. By Jeremy Paltiel 210Regan, Patrick M. Civil Wars and Foreign Powers: Outside Intervention in Intrastate Conflict. By Stephen Ryan 212Sandler, Todd and Keith Hartley. The Political Economy of NATO: Past, Present, and into the 21st Century. By David G. Haglund 213Yeung, May T., Nicholas Perdikis and William A. Kerr. Regional Trading Blocs in the Global Economy: The EU and ASEAN. By Richard Stubbs 215Zeiler, Thomas W. Free Trade, Free World: The Advent of GATT. By Sir Nicholas Bayne, KCMG 216

AbstractBackgroundAbove-knee amputations (AKAs) contribute to gait asymmetry. The level of asymmetry is affected by the type of knee prosthetic module. There is limited evidence suggesting that more technically advanced solutions (microprocessor modules; MicPK) are superior to less advanced ones (mechanical modules; MechPK). The study aimed to evaluate the variable range of hip and pelvic joint movements during gait and look for differentiating areas with an increased level of asymmetry of the gait cycle in individuals who underwent an AKA and are equipped with MicPK or MechPK.MethodsTwenty-eight individuals participated in the study; 14 were assigned to a study group of individuals who underwent a unilateral AKA, and the other 14 were healthy participants as a control group. The movement task was recorded using the optoelectronic SMART-E system following the standard Davis protocol (the Newington model). A new method of quantifying gait symmetry using the symmetry function (SF) is proposed. SF is an integral measure of absolute differences in time-standardized signals between sides throughout the whole cycle of motion variability.ResultsIn the frontal plane, there were significant differences between groups in the asymmetry of the range of movement in the hip joint of the intact limb. In the middle of the support phase, the intact limb was more adducted in individuals with MicPK and less abducted in people with MechPK (differences in mean 180%, p < 0.000; max 63%, p < 0.000; min 65%, p < 0.000). In the sagittal plane, the range of asymmetry of the flexion and thigh extension of the intact limb was similar to and only slightly different from the physiological gait. In the transverse plane, higher asymmetry values were noted for individuals with MicPK. In the final stage of the swing phase, the thigh was more rotated both externally and internally. The size of the asymmetry, when compared to gait of healthy individuals, reached 50% (differences in mean 115%, p < 0.232; max 62% p < 0.26; min 50, p < 0.154).ConclusionsIn the study group, the assessed ranges of pelvic and thigh movement in the hip joint differed only in the frontal plane. Individuals who underwent a unilateral above-knee amputation may gain less from using MicPK than anticipated.

Introdução: O Estado de São Paulo foi a Unidade da Federação onde ocorreu a notificação do primeiro caso de COVID-19 no Brasil e América Latina,apresentando indicadores de saúde alarmantes e boa parte dos municípios afetados. Objetivo: Analisar os indicadores de saúde do Novo Coronavírus (COVID-19) no Estado de São Paulo (ESP) nos três primeiros meses da epidemia a partir da confirmação do primeiro caso. Material e método: Estudo ecológico, descritivo, considerando os casos confirmados de COVID-19 captados pelo Centro de Vigilância Epidemiológica do ESP para o período de 26 de fevereiro a 26 de maio de 2020. Resultados: Houve crescimento do número de municípios (35, 284 e 510), casos confirmados (1.015, 20.652 e 85.459), óbitos (57, 1.700 e 6.423), coeficientes de incidência (2,21; 44,97 e 186,11 para cada 100.000 habitantes) e mortalidade (0,12; 3,70 e 13,99 para cada 100.000 habitantes) - respectivamente, março, abril e maio. Observou-se declínio do coeficiente de letalidade no terceiro mês comparado ao segundo (respectivamente, 8,23 e 7,52 para cada 100 casos). Conclusão: A magnitude do COVID-19 extrapola os indicadores mundiais em algumas localidades do Estado de São Paulo.Descritores: Infecções por Coronavírus; Pandemias; Epidemiologia Descritiva; Estudos Ecológicos.ReferênciasTan W, Zhao X, Ma X, Wang W, Niu P, Xu W et al. A Novel Coronavirus Genome Identified in a Cluster of Pneumonia Cases — Wuhan, China 2019−2020. China CDC Weekly, 2020;2(4):61-2.Rafael RDMR, Neto M, Carvalho MMB de, David HMSL, Acioli S, Faria MG de A. Epidemiologia, políticas públicas e pandemia de Covid-19: o que esperar no Brasil? Rev enferm UERJ. 2020;28:e49570.Wang C, Horby PW, Hayden FG, Gao GF. A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern [published correction appears in Lancet. 2020. Lancet. 2020;395(10223):470-73.Di Gennaro F, Pizzol D, Marotta C, Antunes M, Racalbuto V, Veronese N et al. Coronavirus Diseases (COVID-19) Current Status and Future Perspectives: A Narrative Review. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(8):2690.World Health Organization. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) Situation Report - 117. World Heal Organ [Internet]. 2020;8(1):3–8. Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200516-covid-19-sitrep-117.pdf?sfvrsn=8f562cc_World Health Organization. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Situation Report 138. 2020;(June). Available at: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200606-covid-19-sitrep-138.pdf?sfvrsn=c8abfb17_4BRASIL. Ministério da Saúde S de V em S. Boletim Epidemiológico Especial COE COVID-19. Bol Epidemiológico Espec COE-COVID19 [Internet]. 2020; Available at: https://www.saude.gov.br/images/pdf/2020/May/29/2020-05-25---BEE17---Boletim-do-COE.pdf.The Lancet. COVID-19 in Brazil: "So what?". Lancet. 2020;395(10235):1461.Rodriguez-Morales AJ, Gallego V, Escalera-Antezana JP, Mendez CA, Zambrano LI, Franco-Paredes et. al. COVID-19 in Latin America: The implications of the first confirmed case in Brazil. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2020;35:101613.Governo do Estado de São Paulo10 - Secretaria de Estado da Saúde - Coordenadoria de Controle de Doenças - Centro de Vigilância Epidemiológica “Prof. Alexandre Vranjac” – Novo Coronavírus (COVID-19) - Situação Epidemiológica 26 de fevereiro a 26 de maio de 2020, disponíveis em: http://www.saude.sp.gov.br/cve-centro-de-vigilancia-epidemiologica-prof.-alexandre-vranjac/areas-de-vigilancia/doencas-de-transmissao-respiratoria/coronavirus-covid-19/situacao-epidemiologicaIBGE. Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Brasil. São Paulo. Arandu. Disponível em: https://cidades.ibge.gov.br/brasil/sp/arandu/pesquisa/37/30255Castro Delgado R, Arcos González P. Analyzing the health system's capacity to respond to epidemics: a key element in planning for emergencies. El análisis de la capacidad de respuesta sanitaria como elemento clave en la planificación ante emergencias epidémicas. Emergencias. 2020;32(3):157-59.World-o-Meter. Disponível em: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Acesso em: 14 de maio de 2020.Ren H, Zhao L, Zhang A, Song L, Liao Y, Lu W et al. Early forecasting of the potential risk zones of COVID-19 in China's megacities. Sci Total Environ. 2020;729:138995.Morgenstern H. Ecologic studies in epidemiology: concepts, principles, and methods. Annu Rev Public Health. 1995;16:61-81. Organização Pan-americana de Saúde. REDE Interagencial de Informação para a Saúde – RIPSA. Indicadores Básicos para a Saúde no Brasil: conceitos e aplicações. 2. ed. – Brasília: Organização Pan-Americana da Saúde, 2008. p. 144. Disponível em: http://tabnet.datasus.gov.br/tabdata/livroidb/2ed/CapituloC.pdfMedeiros de Figueiredo A, Daponte A, Moreira Marculino de Figueiredo DC, Gil-García E, Kalache A. Letalidad del COVID-19: ausencia de patrón epidemiológico [Case fatality rate of COVID-19: absence of epidemiological pattern] Gac Sanit. 2020;S0213-9111(20)30084-4.SEADE – Fundação Sistema Estadual de Análise de Dados. Perfil dos Municípios Paulistas. Disponível em: https://perfil.seade.gov.br/. Acessado em: 10/06/2020.Governo de São Paulo. SP Contra o Novo Coronavírus. Adesão ao Isolamento Social em São Paulo. Disponível em: https://www.saopaulo.sp.gov.br/coronavirus/isolamento/. Acessado em 10/06/2020.

Representation of Aboriginality in National Geographic In trafficking images of cultural difference, National Geographic has an unrivalled worldwide reach to over 37 million people per issue. Over the past 25 years, 48 photographs of Aboriginal Australians have appeared in 11 articles in the magazine. This article first examines how the magazine has exoticised, naturalised and sexualised Aboriginal Australians. By deploying the standard evolutionary model, National Geographic typically represents Aboriginal Australians as Black savages relegated to the Stone Age. In the remote outback "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime" (Scollay & Tweedie 645). In "Journey into Dreamtime" (Arden & Abell 8) an Aboriginal man is "triumphant with his kill of a wild turkey [and] leads a small group of Aborigines who have returned to some of the old ways of their nomadic ancestors in the Great Sandy Desert". The article concludes that the Stone Age encounter with modernity depicted in the magazine became a journey through time from location past to location present. Exoticisation The world of the Aboriginal Australians is male through the eyes of National Geographic. This stems from the Western cultural pattern that assigns things masculine to the cultural and things feminine to the natural realm (Ortner). The male Aboriginal performer of an initiation ritual in "Leapingin tribute" (Scollay & Tweedie 656-7) is represented as rooted in tradition and living in a sacred yet superstitious world. Portraits abound of men with painted faces, as in "Surging energy" (Scollay & Tweedie 648). Male finery and self-display become salient markers, Aboriginal "Boys summon courage" in male initiation focussing on bloodletting (Scollay & Tweedie 656). Such images convey the impression that the region is one of nature, taboo, danger and adventure and that it is a land out of time. The enchantment with ritual stems from it being a key to the past and indicative of photographer and writer having travelled through space to travel through time, similar to the connection made by Victorian evolutionary anthropologists last century (see Fabian). Naturalisation The naturalised Aboriginal Australians appearing in National Geographic are characterised by having timeless societies and personalities, what Wolf identifies as people without history. Routine location narratives naturalise Aboriginal Australians through their remote landscapes and seascapes ("blazing bushfire", Scollay & Tweedie 652-3; "conjuring an image as old as his ancestors", "scorched in one season, sodden in the next" Newman & Abell 3-9). In the West the cultural appropriation of nature is the object of labour, whereas for Aboriginal Australians it is the subject of labour. Aboriginal men are hunters ("triumphant with his kill", Arden & Abell 9; "the earth and sea of their own accord furnish them with all the things necessary for life", Newman & Abell 14-5). Thus, in National Geographic the productive world of work further naturalises the Aboriginal 'Other'. Sexualisation Naked Black women provide the hallmark National Geographic imagery of the sexualized 'Other'. By purveying the nude Aboriginal female, the magazine develops Western ideas about race, gender and sexuality, subcategorised in each case as black, female and unrepressed (Lutz & Collins 115). Women are white, men are Black and Black women are invisible in popular visual representations of motherhood in Western culture. In trafficking in photographs of Black women for an overwhelmingly white readership, National Geographic is clearly linking narrative threads of gender and race (Lutz & Collins166). As the readers' gaze focusses on the Aboriginal child they become the site for dealing with racial anxieties through creating the Black love object ("an appetite for learning", Scollay & Tweedie 654; "mud mates", Ellis & Austen 8-9). National Geographic's nickname for mother-child photos is 'tits and tots' (Meltzer) and they are a romantic staple in the magazine. Aboriginal mothering in "marriages of diplomacy" is idealised as the foundation of human social life (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). However, with "seven of Johnny Bungawuy's 11 wives and a handful of his 52 children" this marriage is exotic enough to make cultural difference an issue because it depicts the unusually large number of plural marriage partners available to Aboriginal men in their practice of polygyny. The attribution of erotic qualities and sexual license to Aboriginal women is a result of displaying their bodies for close examination. The naked Aboriginal women in "marriages of diplomacy" represent the nude stylised as ethnographic fact (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). The addition of a woman in the "marriages of diplomacy" photograph commoditises the practice of polygyny and illustrates that women have traditionally been seen as objects to be possessed, owned and adornments to the lives of men (Pollack). Location Past to Location Present Idealisation of the Aboriginal 'Other' allows for detemporalisation to be played out in alluring images of a simpler, natural Aboriginal world only now tentatively facing the throes of modernisation. Social Darwinism counterpoises superstition/ritual with science/technology and darker skin/exotic clothes with lighter skin/Western clothes. The Aboriginal guide bearing a "striking resemblance to his counterpart on the Burke-Wills journey" facilitates a form of ancestor worship that relates to what Rosaldo calls imperialist nostalgia for the passing of what we ourselves have destroyed (Judge & Scherschel 165). Photographs of the Aboriginal Australians are organised into a story about cultural evolution couched in normative discourse of modernisation and development as progress. In photographs contrasting the premodern with the modern the commodity stands for the future: "soda, soap, and spears in the arms of an [Aboriginal] father and daughter demonstrate their coexistence with white society" (Scollay & Tweedie 662). While for the Aboriginal father in "keeping faith with past and future" his "son enters an era that will inevitably propel his people into modern society" (MacLeish & Nebbia 171). Commodities in these contrasting representations are to be seen simply as a stage on the way to Westernisation. Dynamism, change and agency are apportioned to the Western centre, while Aboriginal Australians are just responding to the onslaught of modernisation on the periphery. Aboriginal masculinisation of modernity is situated in a series of photographs depicting the expansive frontier outback where Aboriginal stockmen are content to muster the cattle of white station owners. In "boiling the red dust" the Aboriginal stockman strums his guitar but sometimes "lapses into tradition and roams on walkabout" (Walker & Scherschel 457). Another Aboriginal stockman, in "saga of beef or bust", "uses his tracking ability to run down strays and cleanskins -- unbranded beasts" (MacLeish & Nebbia 161). "Other than his boots and a jug of water all he owns is rolled into the swag", the Aboriginal stockman must compete with the modern helicopter ("pesky as a giant fly", MacLeish & Stanfield 165); alternatively, "with a wager on the line, an Aboriginal stockman whoops it up at the annual Bedourie Race Meeting" (Ellis & Austen 3). The idealised image is one of the rugged yet happy lives of the Aboriginal stockman in transition to modernity. Social evolutionary theory "saw women in non-Western societies as oppressed and servile creatures, beasts of burden, chattels who could be bought and sold, eventually to be liberated by 'civilisation' or 'progress', thus attaining the enviable position of women in Western society" (Etienne & Leacock 1). Aboriginal feminisation of modernity is told through stories about the premodern helpmate to husband work of Aboriginal women. "Sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is gendered with vulnerability, primitivity, superstition and the constraints of tradition (Newman & Abell 24-5). The ambivalent message represented in "sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is complicated by the Aboriginal woman's stockman partner being white. Western ideological understanding of women's work has changed since WWII from helpmate to husband to self-realisation and independence (Chafe). However, images of Aboriginal women in modern work are conspicuously absent. Dispossessed Aboriginal prospectors earn money by 'yandying' ("Paddy Blair's no Irishman", MacLeish & Stanfield 166) -- "winnowing by tossing handfuls of ore into the wind to separate dirt from tin or gold" and 'noodling' -- "poking through rubble" ("selling water and renting bulldozers", Moore & Tweedie 569). Abject "down-and-outs addicted to cheap, poisonous wood alcohol" end up as dispossessed fringe-dwelling 'goomies' in Redfern ("matron saint", Starbird & Madden 224-5). Resistance through situationally motivated undertaking by Indigenous people against expropriation of land and resources is rarely represented in the media (see Drinnon), and National Geographic first attempts such a representation in the 1980s with "heads of several clans" (Scollay & Tweedie 653). Aboriginal men attempt to block a government mining survey crew. But the six Aboriginal men gaze off in different directions and only one is clearly focussed on something in the frame, thus the assembled men assume a disconnected, uncoordinated look. In the 1990s National Geographic story "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula", Aboriginality is equated with caring for the land (Newman & Abell). Aboriginal peoples of Cape York Peninsula are portrayed as conservators valuable for their preservation of biocultural diversity ("the richlytextured landscape", Newman & Abell 17). Aboriginal "white sand people" of Cape York Peninsula are "on a sacred mission" when they "return an ancestor's skull to their homeland at Shelbourne Bay (Newman & Abell 32-3). After years of frustrated efforts to win back their lost domain, the peninsula's native people are at last gaining ground". Aboriginal Australian uses of land and resources are idealised as non-destructive and caring in contrast to rapacious postcolonial development aggression. National Geographic images of Aboriginal Australians have moved from the exoticised, naturalised and sexualised location past. Images in the location present of Cape York mirror the postcolonial transition from Aboriginal dispossession informed by terra nullius to their contemporary empowerment informed by native title. References Arden, H., and S. Abell. "Journey into Dreamtime: The Land of Northwest Australia." National Geographic 179 (Jan. 1991): 8-42. Chafe, W. "Social Change and the American Woman, 1940-70". A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. Eds. W. Chafe and H. Sitkoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. 157-65. Drinnon, R. Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1980. Ellis, W., and D. Austen. "Queensland: Broad Shoulder of Australia." National Geographic 169 (Jan. 1986): 2-39. Etienne, M. and E. Leacock, eds. Women and Colonisation: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger, 1980. Fabian, J. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia UP, 1983. Judge, J., and J. Scherschel. "The Journey of Burke and Wills: First across Australia." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 52-91. Lutz, C., and J. Collins. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. MacLeish, K., and T. Nebbia. "The Top End Down Under." National Geographic Feb. (1993): 143-73. MacLeish, K. and J. Stanfield. "Western Australia: The Big Country." National Geographic Feb. (1975): 147-87. Meltzer, M. Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life. NewYork: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978. Moore, K., and P. Tweedie. "Coober Pedy: Opal Capital of Australia's Outback." National Geographic Oct. (1976): 560-71. Newman, C., and S. Abell. "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula." National Geographic June (1996 ): 2-33. Ortner, S. "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" Woman, Culture, and Society. Eds. M. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1974. 67-88. Pollack, G. "What's Wrong with Images of Women?" Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and the Media. Ed. R. Betterton. London: Pandora, 1987. 40-8. Rosaldo, R. Culture and Truth. Boston: Beacon P, 1989. Scollay, C., and P. Tweedie. "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime." National Geographic Nov. (1980): 645-61. Starbird, E., and R. Madden. "Sydney: Big, Breezy, and a Bloomin' Good Show." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 211-36. Walker, H., and J. Scherschel. "South Australia, Gateway to the Great Outback." National Geographic April (1970): 441-81. Wolf, E. Europe and the People without History.Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Citation reference for this article MLA style: David Hyndman. "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.2 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php>. Chicago style: David Hyndman, "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 2 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: David Hyndman. (2000) Postcolonial representation of Aboriginal Australian culture: location past to location present in National Geographic. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(2). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]).

AbstractObjective. To describe the effects of wearing individual protection equipment against biological hazard when performing a simulated resuscitation.Methods. Uncontrolled quasi-experimental study involving 47 volunteers chosen by random sampling stratified by sex and professional category. We determined vital signs, anthropometric parameters and baseline lactate levels; subsequently, the volunteers put on level D individual protection equipment against biological hazard and performed a simulated resuscitation for 20 minutes. After undressing and 10 minutes of rest, blood was extracted again to determine lactate levels. Metabolic fatigue was defined as a level of lactic acid above 4 mmol/L at the end of the intervention.Results. 25.5% of the participants finished the simulation with an unfavorable metabolic tolerance pattern. The variables that predict metabolic fatigue were the level of physical activity and bone mass -in a protective formand muscle mass. People with a low level of physical activity had ten times the probability of metabolic fatigue compared to those with higher levels of activity (44% versus 4.5%, respectively).Conclusion. Professionals who present a medium or high level of physical activity tolerate resuscitation tasks better with a level D individual biological protection suit in a simulated resuscitation.Descriptors: cardiopulmonary resuscitation; personal protective equipment; anaerobic threshold; containment of biohazards; stress, physiological.How to cite this article: Martín-Rodríguez F. Metabolic fatigue in resuscitators using personal protection equipment against biological hazard. Invest. Educ. Enferm. 2019; 37(2):e04ReferencesBarsuk JH, Cohen ER, Wayne DB, Siddall VJ, McGaghie WC. Developing a Simulation-Based Mastery Learning Curriculum: Lessons from 11 Years of Advanced Cardiac Life Support. Simul. Healthc. 2016; 11(1):52–9. Kwon JH, Burnham CAD, Reske KA, Liang SY, Hink T, Wallace MA, et al. Assessment of Healthcare Worker Protocol Deviations and Self-Contamination During Personal Protective Equipment Donning and Doffing. Infect. Control Hosp. Epidemiol. 2017; 38(9):1077-83. Schoch-Spana M, Cicero A, Adalja A, Gronvall G, Kirk Sell T, Meyer D, et al. Global Catastrophic Biological Risks: Toward a Working Definition. Health Secur. 2017; 15(4):323-8. Millett P, Snyder-Beattie A. Existential Risk and Cost-Effective Biosecurity. Health Secur. 2017; 15(4):373-83. Fogel I, David O, Balik CH, Eisenkraft A, Poles L, Shental O, et al. The association between self-perceived proficiency of personal protective equipment and objective performance: An observational study during a bioterrorism simulation drill. Am. J. Infect. Control. 2017; 45(11): 1238-42. Calfee MW, Tufts J, Meyer K, McConkey K, Mickelsen L, Rose L, et al. Evaluation of standardized sample collection, packaging, and decontamination procedures to assess cross-contamination potential during Bacillus anthracis incident response operations. J. Occup. Environ. Hyg. 2016; 13(12): p. 980-92. Narayanan N, Lacy CR, Cruz JE, Nahass M, Karp J, Barone JA, et al. Disaster Preparedness: Biological Threats and Treatment Options. Pharmacotherapy. 2018; 38(2):217-34. Hunt L, Gupta-Wright A, Simms V, al. e. Clinical presentation, biochemical, and haematological parameters and their association with outcome in patients with Ebola virus disease: an observational cohort study. Lancet Infect. Dis. 2015; 15(11):1292–9. Nicaise V. The Sensitivity And Specificity Of The IPAQ For Detecting Intervention Related Changes In Physical Activity. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc. 2011; 43(Sup. 1):607. van Poppel MNM, Chinapaw MJM, Mokkink LB, van Mechelen W, Terwee CB. Physical activity questionnaires for adults: A systematic review of measurement properties. Sports Med. 2010; 40(7):565-600. Baur DA, Bach CW, Hyder WJ, Ormsbee MJ. Fluid retention, muscle damage, and altered body composition at the Ultraman triathlon. Eur. J. Appl. Physiol. 2016; 116(3):447-58. Spartano LN, Lyass GA, Larson DM, Lewis SG, Vasan SR. Abstract 19256: Predicting Exercise Systolic Blood Pressure and Heart Rate at 20 Years of Follow-up: Correlates in the Framingham Heart Study. Circulation. 2015; 132(3):A19256-A19256. Jayasinghe S, Lambert G, Torres S, Fraser S, Eikelis N, Turner A. Hypothalamo-pituitary adrenal axis and sympatho-adrenal medullary system responses to psychological stress were not attenuated in women with elevated physical fitness levels. Endocrine. 2016; 51(2):369-79. Pattani R, Marquez C, Dinyarian C, Sharma M, Bain J, Moore JE, et al. The perceived organizational impact of the gender gap across a Canadian department of medicine and proposed strategies to combat it: a qualitative study. BMC Medicine. 2018; 16(1): p. 48. ¿Morales‐Alamo D, Losa‐Reyna J, Torres‐Peralta R, Martin‐Rincon M, Perez‐Valera M, Curtelin D, ¿et al. What limits performance during whole‐body incremental exercise to exhaustion in humans? J. Physiol. 2015; 593(20):4631–48. Hall MM, Rajasekaran S, Thomsen TW, Peterson AR. Lactate: Friend or Foe. PM R. 2016; 8(3):S8-S15. Ekkekakis P, Hall EE, Petruzzello SJ. Practical markers of the transition from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism during exercise: rationale and a case for affect-based exercise prescription. Prev. Med. 2014; 38(2):149-59. Vikmoen O, Raastad T, Seynnes O, Bergstrøm K, Ellefsen S, Rønnestad BR. Effects of Heavy Strength Training on Running Performance and Determinants of Running Performance in Female Endurance Athletes. PLoS One. 2016; 11(3):e0150. Devlin J, Paton B, Poole L, Sun W, Ferguson C, Wilson J, et al. d lactate clearance after maximal exercise depends on active recovery intensity. J. Sports Med. Phys. Fitness. 2014; 54(3):271-8. Szarpak L, Madziała M, Smereka J. Comparison of endotracheal intubation performed with 3 devices by paramedics wearing chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear personal protective equipment. Am. J. Emerg Med. 2016; 34(9):1902-3. Szarpak L, Ramirez JG, Buljan D, Drozd A, Madziała M, Czyzewski L. Comparison of Bone Injection Gun and Jamshidi intraosseous access devices by paramedics with and without chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear personal protective equipment: a randomized, crossover, manikin trial. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2016; 34(7):1307-8. Szarpak L, Truszewski Z, Smereka J, Madziała M, Czyzewski L. Comparison of two intravascular access techniques when using CBRN-PPE: A randomized crossover manikin trial. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2016; 34(6):1170-2. Szarpak L, Truszewski Z, Gałązkowski R, Czyzewski L. Comparison of two chest compression techniques when using CBRN-PPE: a randomized crossover manikin trial. Am. J. Emerg. Med. 2016; 34(5): 913-5. Stein C, Makkink A, Vincent-Lambert C. The effect of physical exertion in chemical and biological personal protective equipment on physiological function and reaction time. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2010; 14(1):36-44. Ji T, Qian X, Yuan M, Jiang J. Experimental study of thermal comfort on stab resistant body armor. Springerplus. 2016; 5(1):1168. Carter H, Amlôt R. Mass Casualty Decontamination Guidance and Psychosocial Aspects of CBRN Incident Management: A Review and Synthesis. PLoS Curr. 2016; September 27; 8. Verbeek JH. Personal protective equipment for preventing highly infectious diseases due to exposure to contaminated body fluids in healthcare staff. Cochrane Database Syst. Rev. 2016; 4:CD011621. Coca A. Physiological Evaluation of Personal Protective Ensembles Recommended for Use in West Africa. Disaster Med. Public Health Prep. 2017; 11(5): 580-6.

Introduction – Polish GrungeThe main objective of this article is to examine the grunge scene of the 1990s in Poland in the context of acculturation and assimilation processes. Polish grunge was, on the one hand, the expression of trends that were observable in music industry since the late 1980s. On the other hand, it was symptomatic of a rapid systemic transformation. Youth culture was open for the diffusion of cultural patterns and was ready to adopt certain patterns from the West.Thus, we suggest that the local grunge scene was completely modelled on the American one: the flow of cultural practices and subcultural fashion were the manifestations of the assimilation processes in Poland, observable not only in art (i.e. rock music), but also in the domains of politics and economy, as well as in the broader social sphere. We explore how young people were ready to adopt only the surface level of the phenomenon as they were familiar with it through the media coverage it received. Young people in Poland circa the early ‘90s primarily wanted to gain access to an imaginary Western lifestyle rather than learn about real living conditions in capitalist societies, and they could do this through their involvement in grunge culture.Grunge as a Cultural PhenomenonGrunge as a popular music trend arose in the USA during the late 1980s and early 1990s, in the work of bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains. Grunge was initially opposed to consumerism and capitalist values. Nevertheless, A&R scouts recognised the commercial potential of this music: for example, Nirvana’s Nevermind was released by Geffen Company, and Pearl Jam’s Ten by Epic. As Grzegorz Brzozowicz and Filip Łobodziński put it (313),the success of Nirvana was a post-mort triumph of punk rock and, more importantly, it indicated the potential of alternative music, which suddenly stepped outside an aesthetic ghetto and became a hot stuff. This influence was also visible as regards fashion and customs – Dr. Martens’ shoes, flannel shirts, frayed jeans, and wool caps became an outfit common for the young (…). Grunge influenced visual art, film and photography.In Poland, grunge as a subculture and sub-genre of rock music emerged in the early 1990s following the international commercial success of bands such as those listed above, and it entailed the assimilation of the Western cultural patterns. Although assimilation processes were typical primarily for youth culture, they were observed in the wider context of the changes and adaptations that Polish system underwent after the fall of the centrally planned economy and subjugation to the communist party power after the Yalta agreements (1945-1989/1990).In this context, the concept Centre/Periphery (Gopinathan, Saravanan and Altbach; Hannerz; Langholm; Pisciotta) appears as the field for the dissemination of popular culture. Popular culture is a battlefield for creating and negotiating the meanings that are inherent within cultural practices (Barker). Cultural practices play a double role in the dissemination of ideas or objects. Firstly, they come as a result of adaptation in a defined culture, and secondly, they make new cultural patterns stabile, visible, and easy to practice by people as flexible patterns of behaviour. This point is clearly visible in the context of the East European states that underwent rapid acculturation processes in which new patterns of economic and social solutions were established in centre-planned economies: the tensions of the “old” and the “new” patterns dominating in the political and social systems of those countries (e.g. Poland, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, etc.) were visible and affected societies to a considerable degree (Pisciotta). Thus, the practices generated in cultural Centres tend to disseminate easily and to “conquer” other cultural systems, especially in the Periphery.In the case of popular culture, the flow of influences usually takes a one-dimensional form and is disseminated from the Centre to the Periphery. As Marek Jeziński (162-163) argues, both Centre and Periphery are functional systems. These systems have generated their own mythology, which separates one from another. However, as in the case of mythological systems in general, Centre and Periphery tales overlap frequently, and there are evidence that the bands that originated in the Periphery were assimilated by the Centre. For example, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were both successful in market terms and both built their own status based on the Peripheral components that were skilfully overtaken by the Centre narrative. While the Peripheral narratives are concentrated mainly on the undermining of the definition of situation and present dysfunctional character towards cultural system as such, the Centre narratives aim to maintain the definition of situation supporting mainstream values and their prevailing position in a system (Jeziński 164). Grunge is the epitome of such an implementation of cultural patterns. That is, grunge started as a fringe peripheral cultural phenomenon. The major records companies, however, recognised its potential and provided the space in the music market to support the new bands. Most of the groups in the US started as independent local acts related to independent record companies that built their status.In relation to the assimilation of grunge culture in Poland, we can distinguish two key phenomena. The first is concerned with the adaptation of general subcultural components, e.g. fashion and group identification. Here, the acculturation processes run as a primary form of mimicry, as the Polish grunge scene adopted elements typical of the grunge subculture, such as oversize sweaters, flannel shirts, Dr. Martens shoes or Converse trainers, long hair, and beanies. A newly formed subculture was different from the others popular in the 1990s. For example, punk and metal subcultures implied strong group identity, style homogeneity, rigid group limitations, and firm membership rules. Conversely, it seems that the grunge subculture was based more on a level of liquid and fragmented patchwork identity than on very inflexible group values and internal ideology or political attitudes (cf. Muggleton). Such patchwork identity formation was a result of a rapid clash between the adaptation of grunge cultural patterns from the West and the Polish economic transformation of the early 1990s.Poland underwent rapid changes that were also visible in the politics, culture and social domain, joining liberal democracies and liberal free market economies of the West. These changes resulted from a transformation of the system as a whole: from a central planned system to decentralisation of the power at both local and state levels (Sarnecki). Equally important were the changes in the political culture of Poles and their value system: they accepted the democratic changes but simultaneously, the mentality of Poles remained traditionalist (which is visible in surveys— the most important values for them were “family” and “work”), and their attitude towards the processes of cultural and institutional changes was impermanent (Garlicki; Jasińska-Kania).During the transformation, the changes were visible in the everyday lives of Polish citizens: examples include the shortages in the market that were evident after the socialist regime ended, and the easy availability of Western clothes such as jeans, shirts, denim jackets in ordinary stores. Consequently, the economic rates in the 1990s were higher in comparison to the previous decade (Bałtowski and Miszewski). Those changes resulted in a phase shift in the modernisation process, where patterns of economic and cultural development and were faster than the enculturation and socialisation processes.On the one hand, the free market allowed for almost unlimited commodification with unprecedented access to goods and services. On the other hand, the low cultural capital and economic possibilities of the citizens evolved rapidly. The communist-shaped social division fell apart, and the new class designations based of consumption/commodification patterns were established (Jeziński; Wojtkowski). Those factors resulted in high cross-generational mobility, lower entrance barriers, and higher openness indicators (cf. Polska klasa średnia; O ruchliwości społecznej w polsce).Hence, in cultural conditions based on capitalist consumption practices, the grunge subculture evolved with a commodified sense of style rather than with a firm identity. Yet, in the case of grunge style, relatively high costs of subculture commodities (e.g. Dr. Martens shoes, Converse trainers, or band t-shirts) led to DIY practices such as buying cheaper no-name shoes, and sewing badges with the names of bands and albums on jackets or backpacks.The second phenomenon encompasses the adaptation of music patterns. The Polish grunge scene was not as diversified in terms of genre variations as its US counterpart. In the beginning, the Polish grunge scene was more distressed geographically, with no specific Centre-Periphery relations. However, one of the most important bands, Hey, was established in the Northwest. When one looks at Polish grunge evolution as a ‘clash’ of American genre and the specific character of a time and place where Polish bands were recording, she or he will notice multiple similarities with the US scene.Firstly, we could name two approaches to grunge music among Polish performers: ‘intellectual’ and ‘rebel’. The ‘intellectual’ approach encompasses the group Hey. This band was established in Szczecin (the Northwest Poland), but after the success of their first album – Fire (1993), they moved to Warsaw. Hey released 11 studio records, but only the first three could be classified as “grunge” (cf. Sankowski). On the level of musical references, Fire sounds like a mixture of early Pearl Jam combined with Alice in Chains. With English lyrics and song topics that were typical for grunge— e.g., The Choice (“You’ve got a gun/You can use it now”)—similarities with Pearl Jam, in particular, are striking. The band evolved, and on their second album, Ho! (1994), Hey mixed equally Polish and English lyrics with the dynamic and specific Seattle sound (cf. Prato). Hey’s most distinctive feature comparing with other Polish grunge bands is its highly developed melodic approach to music and the poetic, sensual style of its lyrics. The third record, ? (1995), closes the band’s early stage. The next album, Karma (1997), opens the period when the amalgamation of electronics, hard rock and grunge dominated Hey’s music, with the album [sic!] (2001) representing the turning point in the group’s music style. The band suspended their work in 2017 and will probably never reunite.Over time, Hey gained one of the most dedicated audiences in Polish rock music. The music industry and critics have acknowledged Hey as one of the best Polish groups in the post-communist period. Hey has received the most nominations in the history of Fryderyki, the key Polish music awards. The group and Nosowska have won twenty-three times in multiple categories. As the longest-operating grunge-origin band in the country, Hey could be considered as a most important trend setting and scene-forming group.The more “rebellious” approach to grunge encompasses bands such as Illusion (1992-1999, 2014-present) and Houk. The former was based on the grunge and hardcore mixture of influences from Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, and Rage Against the Machine (especially in terms of rap-oriented lyrics). With the preservation of certain consistency, the band named first three albums: Illusion (1993), Illusion II (1994), and Illusion III (1995). Illusion marks the band’s aggressive style and lyrics simplicity but the studio production flattens the whole and gives an impression of a post-punk DIY venture rather than a coherent composition. The second record, however, is entirely conceptualised and thought out in terms of music and lyrics. Sharp riffs, hard rock tuning of instruments and aggressive lyrics that were focused on Polish life gave the album a needed consistency. The band’s third record is the most varied stylistically and politically engaged in their history. The harder-edged tunes from previous releases are accompanied by more psychedelic compositions (Wrona) that recall Alice in Chains’ slow songs and Layne Staley’s voice.Houk’s music similarly to other Polish grunge bands was the amalgamation of various genres and their style evolved in time. Initially, the band was regarded as an example of alternative rock music. The first album Soul Ammunition (1992) was named by music monthly Tylko Rock as a debut of the year (polskirock.art.pl). The combination of grunge, hardcore, hard rock, reggae and socio-politically engaged lyrics helped the group to establish a strong fan base. The band’s unique style was recognised internationally and Houk supported New Model Army and Bad Brains during the performances in the mid-1990’s (polskirock.art.pl). The band’s second studio release Generation X (1995) was recorded prior the multiple membership reorganizations that finally ended the grunge-orientation period of Houk’s history. One of the songs, Sleep, was dedicated to Kurt Cobain and reflected Nirvana’s approach to songwriting, which can be heard in songs such as “Lithium” (1991). Such a commemoration of Cobain’s figure is characteristic of Polish grunge culture’s establishment of strong ties with the American equivalent. Here and in many similar cases, Cobain serves not only as a grunge hero (or even a martyr) but also as a commodified pop culture figure (cf. Strong). Concerning both spheres - that is, the adaptation of grunge subculture and a development of the music scene -Polish grunge follows a different pattern to the US genre. Grunge was introduced to Poland after it was popularised and commodified by the major labels and media industry in the USA, so the adopted version was the mainstream one rather than the underground movement. Hence, the simplistic dichotomy between “underground” and “mainstream” culture does not function in terms of the Polish grunge culture, and probably is misstated even when it comes to the American phenomenon. Grunge could be perceived in Poland as both the first and the last “true” subcultural trend. At the same time, though, it was an affirmation not of ‘the rebel’ and ‘the underground’ but of capitalism and the cultural values of the West. Indeed, the Polish grunge culture couldn’t be fully aware of what grunge was warning us against while Polish society faced the rapid market and cultural transformation that allowed for its opening to Western trends.Conclusion – Is Grunge Really Dead?Although the popularity of grunge phenomenon in Poland was relatively short, the most important groups of this sub-genre - Illusion, Hey, Ahimsa, Houk, and Kr’shna Brothers - widely contributed to the emergence of the new wave of fashion for rock and hard-rock music in Poland in the mid-1990s. The most successful group of the era, Hey epitomises the transformation of grunge in Poland. Starting as a typical grunge band (modelled heavily on the US groups), they underwent a serious transition, substantially changing their music into more mainstream-oriented rock (that is, as music that was considered acceptable by rock music and AOR-focused radio stations). At the same time, grunge as a rock sub-genre underwent the contrary changes: it broke into the mainstream relatively quickly in the first half of the 1990s, establishing new rock stars of the scene (Illusion, Houk, Ahimsa, Hey), but in the late 1990s it went back to being a rock niche again. It seems that today grunge serves as a point of reference (in fact, it was an important period of rock history) for the new bands that intentionally use this sub-genre as a form of commodified, media-friendly nostalgia.ReferencesBałtowski, Maciej, Miszewski, Maciej. Transformacja gospodarcza w Polsce. Warszawa: PWN, 2006.Biografia Houk. 25 Nov. 2018 <https://www.polskirock.art.pl/houk,z346,biografia.html>.Brzozowicz, Grzegorz, and Filip Łobodziński. Sto płyt, które wstrząsnęły światem: Kronika czasów popkultury. Warszawa: Iskry, 2000.Domański, Henryk. Polska klasa średnia. Wrocław: FNP i W. Wrocławskie, 2002.Domański, Henryk. O ruchliwości społecznej w Polsce. Warszawa: IFiS PAN, 2004.Garlicki, Jan. “Tradycje i dynamika kultury politycznej społeczeństwa polskiego.” Dylematy polskiej transformacji. Ed. Jan Błuszkowski. Warszawa: DW Elipsa, 2007. 155-174.Gopinathan, Saravanan, and Philip G. Altbach. “Rethinking Centre–Periphery.” Asia Pacific Journal of Education 25.2 (2005): 117-123.Hannerz, Ulf. “Culture between Center and Periphery: Toward a Macroanthropology.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 54.3-4 (1989): 200-216.Houk. Soul Ammunition. 23 Nov. 2018 <https://www.polskirock.art.pl/soul-ammunition,houk,3051,plyta.html>.Jasińska-Kania, Aleksandra. “Dynamika zmian wartości Polaków na tle europejskim: EVS 1990-1999-2008.” Polska po 20 latach wolności. Eds. Marta Bucholc, Sławomir Mandes, Tadeusz Szawiel and Joanna Wawrzyniak. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego, 2011. 225-239.Jeziński, Marek. Mitologie muzyki popularnej. Toruń: WN Uniwersytetu Mikołaja Kopernika, 2014.Jeziński, Marek, and Łukasz Wojtkowski. “Nostalgia Commodified: Towards the Marketization of the Post-Communist Past through the New Media.” Medien und Zeit 4 (2016): 96–104.Langholm, Sivert. “On the Concepts of Center and Periphery.” Journal of Peace Research 8.3-4 (1971): 273-278.Muggleton, David. Inside Subculture. The Postmodern Meaning of Style. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.Pisciotta, Barbara. “The Center-Periphery Cleavage Revisited: East and Central Europe from Postcommunism to Euroscepticism.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 22.2 (2016): 193-219.Sankowski, Robert. “Hey, czyli któtka historia polskiego popu.” Wyborcza.pl, 3 Nov. 2012. 1 Aug. 2018 <http://wyborcza.pl/1,75410,12788097,Hey__czyli_krotka_historia_polskiego_popu.html>. Sarnecki, Paweł. “Od kumulacji do podziału władzy.” Transformacja ustrojowa w Polsce 1989-2009. Eds. Maria Kruk and Jan Wawrzyniak. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar, 2011. 37-58.Strong, Catherine. Grunge and the Memory. London: Routledge, 2016.

“The intellect must not only desire surreptitious delights; it must become completely free and celebrate Saturnalia.” (Nietzsche 6) Theory-jamming suggests an array of eclectic methods, deployed in response to emerging conditions, using traditional patterns to generate innovative moves, seeking harmony and syncopation, transparent about purpose and power, aiming for demonstrable certainties while aware of their own provisional fragility. In this paper, theory-jamming is suggested as an antidote for the confusion and disarray that typifies communication theory. Communication theory as the means to conceptualise the transmission of information and the negotiation of meaning has never been a stable entity. Entrenched divisions between ‘administrative’ and ‘critical’ tendencies are played out within schools and emerging disciplines and across a range of scientific/humanist, quantitative/qualitative and political/cultural paradigms. “Of course, this is only the beginning of the mischief for there are many other polarities at play and a host of variations within polar contrasts” (Dervin, Shields and Song). This paper argues that the play of contending schools with little purchase on each other, or anything much, has turned meta-discourse about communication into an ontological spiral. Perhaps the only way to ride out this storm is to look towards communication practices that confront these issues and appreciate their theoretical underpinnings. From its roots in jazz and blues to its contemporary manifestations in rap and hip-hop and throughout the communication industries, the jam (or improvised reorganisation of traditional themes into new and striking patterns) confronts the ontological spiral in music, and life, by taking the flotsam flung out of the spiral to piece together the means to transcend the downward pull into the abyss. Many pretenders have a theory. Theory abounds: language theory, number theory, game theory, quantum theory, string theory, chaos theory, cyber-theory, queer theory, even conspiracy theory and, most poignantly, the putative theory of everything. But since Bertrand Russell’s unsustainable class of all classes, Gödel’s systemically unprovable propositions and Heisenberger’s uncertainty principle, the propensity for theories to fall into holes in themselves has been apparent. Nowhere is this more obvious than in communication theory where many schools contend without actually connecting to each other. From the 1930s, as the mass media formed, there have been administrative and critical tendencies at war in the communication arena. Some point to the origins of the split in the Institute of Social Research’s Radio Project where pragmatic sociologist, Paul Lazarsfeld broke with Frankfurt School critical theorist, Theodor Adorno over the quality of data. Lazarsfeld was keen to produce results while Adorno complained the data over-simplified the relationship between mass media and audiences (Rogers). From this split grew the twin disciplines of mass communication (quantitative, liberal, commercial and lost in its obsession with the measurement of minor media effects) and cultural/media studies (qualitative, post-Marxist, radical and lost in simulacra of their own devising). The complexity of interactions between these two disciplines, with the same subject matter but very different ways of thinking about it, is the foundation of the ontological black hole in communication theory. As the disciplines have spread out across universities, professional organizations and publishers, they have been used and abused for ideological, institutional and personal purposes. By the summer of 1983, the split was documented in a special issue of the Journal of Communication titled “Ferment in the Field”. Further, professional courses in journalism, public relations, marketing, advertising and media production have complex relations with both theoretical wings, which need the student numbers and are adept at constructing and defending new boundaries. The 90s saw any number ‘wars’: Journalism vs Cultural Studies, Cultural Studies vs Cultural Policy Studies, Cultural Studies vs Public Relations, Public Relations vs Journalism. More recently, the study of new communication technologies has led to a profusion of nascent, neo-disciplines shadowing, mimicking and reacting with old communication studies: “Internet studies; New media studies; Digital media studies; Digital arts and culture studies; Cyberculture studies; Critical cyberculture studies; Networked culture studies; Informatics; Information science; Information society studies; Contemporary media studies” (Silver & Massanari 1). As this shower of cyberstudies spirals by, it is further warped by the split between the hard science of communication infrastructure in engineering and information technology and what the liberal arts have to offer. The early, heroic attempt to bridge this gap by Claude Shannon and, particularly, Warren Weaver was met with disdain by both sides. Weaver’s philosophical interpretation of Shannon’s mathematics, accommodating the interests of technology and of human communication together, is a useful example of how disparate ideas can connect productively. But how does a communications scholar find such connections? How can we find purchase amongst this avalanche of ideas and agendas? Where can we get the traction to move beyond twentieth century Balkanisation of communications theory to embrace the whole? An answer came to me while watching the Discovery Channel. A documentary on apes showed them leaping from branch to branch, settling on a swaying platform of leaves, eating and preening, then leaping into the void until they make another landing, settling again… until the next leap. They are looking for what is viable and never come to ground. Why are we concerned to ground theory which can only prove its own impossibility while disregarding the certainty of what is viable for now? I carried this uneasy insight for almost five years, until I read Nietzsche on the methods of the pre-Platonic philosophers: “Two wanderers stand in a wild forest brook flowing over rocks; the one leaps across using the stones of the brook, moving to and fro ever further… The other stands there helplessly at each moment. At first he must construct the footing that can support his heavy steps; when this does not work, no god helps him across the brook. Is it only boundless rash flight across great spaces? Is it only greater acceleration? No, it is with flights of fantasy, in continuous leaps from possibility to possibility taken as certainties; an ingenious notion shows them to him, and he conjectures that there are formally demonstrable certainties” (Nietzsche 26). Nietzsche’s advice to take the leap is salutary but theory must be more than jumping from one good idea to the next. What guidance do the practices of communication offer? Considering new forms that have developed since the 1930s, as communication theory went into meltdown, the significance of the jam is unavoidable. While the jam session began as improvised jazz and blues music for practice, fellowship and fun, it quickly became the forum for exploring new kinds of music arising from the deconstruction of the old and experimentation with technical, and ontological, possibilities. The jam arose as a spin-off of the dance music circuit in the 1930s. After the main, professional show was over, small groups would gather together in all-night dives for informal, spontaneous sessions of unrehearsed improvisation, playing for their own pleasure, “in accordance with their own esthetic [sic] standards” (Cameron 177). But the jam is much more than having a go. The improvisation occurs on standard melodies: “Theoretically …certain introductions, cadenzas, clichés and ensemble obbligati assume traditional associations (as) ‘folkways’… that are rarely written down but rather learned from hearing (“head jobs”)” (Cameron 178-9). From this platform of tradition, the artist must “imagine in advance the pattern which unfolds… select a part in the pattern appropriate to the occasion, instrument and personal abilities (then) produce startlingly distinctive sound patterns (that) rationalise the impossible.” The jam is founded on its very impossibility: “the jazz aesthetic is basically a paradox… traditionalism and the radical originality are irreconcilable” (Cameron 181). So how do we escape from this paradox, the same paradox that catches all communication theorists between the demands of the past and the impossibility of the future? “Experimentation is mandatory and formal rules become suspect because they too quickly stereotype and ossify” (Cameron 181). The jam seems to work because it offers the possibility of the impossible made real by the act of communication. This play between the possible and the impossible, the rumbling engine of narrative, is the dynamo of the jam. Theory-jamming seeks to activate just such a dynamo. Rather than having a group of players on their instruments, the communication theorist has access a range of theoretical riffs and moves that can be orchestrated to respond to the question in focus, to latest developments, to contradictions or blank spaces within theoretical terrains. The theory-jammer works to their own standards, turning ideas learned from others (‘head jobs’) into their own distinctive patterns, still reliant on traditional melody, harmony and syncopation but now bent, twisted and reorganised into an entirely new story. The practice of following old pathways to new destinations has a long tradition in the West as eclecticism, a Graeco-Roman, particularly Alexandrian, philosophical tradition from the first century BC to the end of the classical period. Typified by Potamo who “encouraged his pupils instead to learn from a variety of masters”, eclecticism sought the best from each school, “all that teaches righteousness combined, the complete eclectic unity” (Kelley 578). By selecting the best, most reasonable, most useful elements from existing philosophical beliefs, polymaths such as Cicero sought the harmonious solution of particular problems. We see something similar to eclecticism in the East in the practices of ‘wild fox zen’ which teaches liberation from conceptual fixation (Heine). The 20th century’s most interesting eclectic was probably Walter Benjamin whose method owes something to both scientific Marxism and the Jewish Kabbalah. His hero was the rag-picker who had the cunning to create life from refuse and detritus. Benjamin’s greatest work, the unfinished Arcades Project, sought to create history from the same. It is a collection of photos, ephemera and transcriptions from books and newspapers (Benjamin). The particularity of eclecticism may be contrasted with the claim to universality of syncretism, the reconciliation of disparate or opposing beliefs by melding together various schools of thought into a new orthodoxy. Theory-jammers are not looking for a final solution but rather they seek what will work on this problem now, to come to a provisional solution, always aware that other, better, further solutions may be ahead. Elements of the jam are apparent in other contemporary forms of communication. For example bricolage, the practice from art, culture and information systems, involves tinkering elements together by trial and error, in ways not originally planned. Pastiche, from literature to the movies, mimics style while creating a new message. In theatre and TV comedy, improvisation has become a style in itself. Theory-jamming has direct connections with brainstorming, the practice that originated in the advertising industry to generate new ideas and solutions by kicking around possibilities. Against the hyper-administration of modern life, as the disintegration of grand theory immobilises thinkers, theory-jamming provides the means to think new thoughts. As a political activist and communications practitioner in Australia over the last thirty years, I have always been bemused by the human propensity to factionalise. Rather than getting bogged down by positions, I have sought to use administrative structures to explore critical ideas, to marshal critical approaches into administrative apparatus, to weld together critical and administrative formations in ways useful to both sides, bust most importantly, in ways useful to human society and a healthy environment. I've been accused of selling-out by the critical camp and of being unrealistic by the administrative side. My response is that we have much more to learn by listening and adapting than we do by self-satisfied stasis. Five Theses on Theory-Jamming Eclecticism requires Ethnography: the eclectic is the ethnographer loose in their own mind. “The free spirit surveys things, and now for the first time mundane existence appears to it worthy of contemplation…” (Nietzsche 6). Enculturation and Enumeration need each other: qualitative and quantitative research work best when they work off each other. “Beginners learned how to establish parallels, by means of the Game’s symbols, between a piece of classical music and the formula for some law of nature. Experts and Masters of the Game freely wove the initial theme into unlimited combinations.” (Hesse) Ephemera and Esoterica tell us the most: the back-story is the real story as we stumble on the greatest truths as if by accident. “…the mind’s deeper currents often need to be surprised by indirection, sometimes, indeed, by treachery and ruse, as when you steer away from a goal in order to reach it more directly…” (Jameson 71). Experimentation beyond Empiricism: more than testing our sense of our sense data of the world. Communication theory extends from infra-red to ultraviolet, from silent to ultrasonic, from absolute zero to complete heat, from the sub-atomic to the inter-galactic. “That is the true characteristic of the philosophical drive: wonderment at that which lies before everyone.” (Nietzsche 6). Extravagance and Exuberance: don’t stop until you’ve got enough. Theory-jamming opens the possibility for a unified theory of communication that starts, not with a false narrative certainty, but with the gaps in communication: the distance between what we know and what we say, between what we say and what we write, between what we write and what others read back, between what others say and what we hear. References Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard UP, 2002. Cameron, W. B. “Sociological Notes on the Jam Session.” Social Forces 33 (Dec. 1954): 177–82. Dervin, B., P. Shields and M. Song. “More than Misunderstanding, Less than War.” Paper at International Communication Association annual meeting, New York City, NY, 2005. 5 Oct. 2006 http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p13530_index.html>. “Ferment in the Field.” Journal of Communication 33.3 (1983). Heine, Steven. “Putting the ‘Fox’ Back in the ‘Wild Fox Koan’: The Intersection of Philosophical and Popular Religious Elements in The Ch’an/Zen Koan Tradition.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56.2 (Dec. 1996): 257-317. Hesse, Hermann. The Glass Bead Game. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism.” New Left Review 146 (1984): 53-90. Kelley, Donald R. “Eclecticism and the History of Ideas.” Journal of the History of Ideas 62.4 (Oct. 2001): 577-592 Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Pre-Platonic Philosophers. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001. Rogers, E. M. “The Empirical and the Critical Schools of Communication Research.” Communication Yearbook 5 (1982): 125-144. Shannon, C.E., and W. Weaver. The Mathematical Theory of Communication. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949. Silver, David, Adrienne Massanari. Critical Cyberculture Studies. New York: NYU P, 2006. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Stockwell, Stephen. "Theory-Jamming: Uses of Eclectic Method in an Ontological Spiral." M/C Journal 9.6 (2006). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/09-stockwell.php>. APA Style Stockwell, S. (Dec. 2006) "Theory-Jamming: Uses of Eclectic Method in an Ontological Spiral," M/C Journal, 9(6). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0612/09-stockwell.php>.

“...children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents...” — Stephen Kline, The Making of Children’s Culture We live in a world saturated by design and through design artefacts, one can glean unique insights into a culture's values and norms. In fact, some academics, such as British media and film theorist Ben Highmore, see the two areas so inextricably intertwined as to suggest a wholesale “re-branding of the cultural sciences as design studies” (14). Too often, however, everyday objects are marginalised or overlooked as objects of scholarly attention. The field of material culture studies seeks to change that by focussing on the quotidian object and its ability to reveal much about the time, place, and culture in which it was designed and used. This article takes on one such object, a mid-century children's toy tea set, whose humble journey from 1968 Sears catalogue to 2014 thrift shop—and subsequently this author’s basement—reveals complex rhetorical messages communicated both visually and verbally. As material culture studies theorist Jules Prown notes, the field’s foundation is laid upon the understanding “that objects made ... by man reflect, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased or used them, and by extension the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged” (1-2). In this case, the objects’ material and aesthetic characteristics can be shown to reflect some of the pervasive stereotypes and gender roles of the mid-century and trace some of the prevailing tastes of the American middle class of that era, or perhaps more accurately the type of design that came to represent good taste and a modern aesthetic for that audience. A wealth of research exists on the function of toys and play in learning about the world and even the role of toy selection in early sex-typing, socialisation, and personal identity of children (Teglasi). This particular research area isn’t the focus of this article; however, one aspect that is directly relevant and will be addressed is the notion of adult role-playing among children and the role of toys in communicating certain adult practices or values to the child—what sociologist David Oswell calls “the dedifferentiation of childhood and adulthood” (200). Neither is the focus of this article the practice nor indeed the ethicality of marketing to children. Relevant to this particular example I suggest, is as a product utilising messaging aimed not at children but at adults, appealing to certain parents’ interest in nurturing within their child a perceived era and class-appropriate sense of taste. This was fuelled in large part by the curatorial pursuits of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, coupled with an interest and investment in raising their children in a design-forward household and a desire for toys that reflected that priority; in essence, parents wishing to raise modern children. Following Prown’s model of material culture analysis, the tea set is examined in three stages, through description, deduction and speculation with each stage building on the previous one. Figure 1: Porcelain Toy Tea Set. Description The tea set consists of twenty-six pieces that allows service for six. Six cups, saucers, and plates; a tall carafe with spout, handle and lid; a smaller vessel with a spout and handle; a small round bowl with a lid; a larger oval bowl with a lid, and a coordinated oval platter. The cups are just under two inches tall and two inches in diameter. The largest piece, the platter is roughly six inches by four inches. The pieces are made of a ceramic material white in colour and glossy in texture and are very lightweight. The rim or edge of each piece is decorated with a motif of three straight lines in two different shades of blue and in different thicknesses, interspersed with a set of three black wiggly lines. Figure 2: Porcelain Toy Tea Set Box. The set is packaged for retail purposes and the original box appears to be fully intact. The packaging of an object carries artefactual evidence just as important as what it contains that falls into the category of a “‘para-artefact’ … paraphernalia that accompanies the product (labels, packaging, instructions etc.), all of which contribute to a product’s discourse” (Folkmann and Jensen 83). The graphics on the box are colourful, featuring similar shades of teal blue as found on the objects, with the addition of orange and a silver sticker featuring the logo of the American retailer Sears. The cover features an illustration of the objects on an orange tabletop. The most prominent text that confirms that the toy is a “Porcelain Toy Tea Set” is in an organic, almost psychedelic style that mimics both popular graphics of this era—especially album art and concert posters—as well as the organic curves of steam that emanate from the illustrated teapot’s spout. Additional messages appear on the box, in particular “Contemporary DESIGN” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. Along the edges of the box lid, a detail of the decorative motif is reproduced somewhat abstracted from what actually appears on the ceramic objects. Figure 3: Sears’s Christmas Wishbook Catalogue, page 574 (1968). Sears, Roebuck and Co. (Sears) is well-known for its over one-hundred-year history of producing printed merchandise catalogues. The catalogue is another important para-artefact to consider in analysing the objects. The tea set first appeared in the 1968 Sears Christmas Wishbook. There is no date or copyright on the box, so only its inclusion in the catalogue allows the set to be accurately dated. It also allows us to understand how the set was originally marketed. Deduction In the deduction phase, we focus on the sensory aesthetic and functional interactive qualities of the various components of the set. In terms of its function, it is critical that we situate the objects in their original use context, play. The light weight of the objects and thinness of the ceramic material lends the objects a delicate, if not fragile, feeling which indicates that this set is not for rough use. Toy historian Lorraine May Punchard differentiates between toy tea sets “meant to be used by little girls, having parties for their friends and practising the social graces of the times” and smaller sets or doll dishes “made for little girls to have parties with their dolls, or for their dolls to have parties among themselves” (7). Similar sets sold by Sears feature images of girls using the sets with both human playmates and dolls. The quantity allowing service for six invites multiple users to join the party. The packaging makes clear that these toy tea sets were intended for imaginary play only, rendering them non-functional through an all-capitals caution declaiming “IMPORTANT: Do not use near heat”. The walls and handles of the cups are so thin one can imagine that they would quickly become dangerous if filled with a hot liquid. Nevertheless, the lid of the oval bowl has a tan stain or watermark which suggests actual use. The box is broken up by pink cardboard partitions dividing it into segments sized for each item in the set. Interestingly even the small squares of unfinished corrugated cardboard used as cushioning between each stacked plate have survived. The evidence of careful re-packing indicates that great care was taken in keeping the objects safe. It may suggest that even though the set was used, the children or perhaps the parents, considered the set as something to care for and conserve for the future. Flaws in the glaze and applique of the design motif can be found on several pieces in the set and offer some insight as to the technique used in producing these items. Errors such as the design being perfectly evenly spaced but crooked in its alignment to the rim, or pieces of the design becoming detached or accidentally folded over and overlapping itself could only be the result of a print transfer technique popularised with decorative china of the Victorian era, a technique which lends itself to mass production and lower cost when compared to hand decoration. Speculation In the speculation stage, we can consider the external evidence and begin a more rigorous investigation of the messaging, iconography, and possible meanings of the material artefact. Aspects of the set allow a number of useful observations about the role of such an object in its own time and context. Sociologists observe the role of toys as embodiments of particular types of parental messages and values (Cross 292) and note how particularly in the twentieth century “children’s play seems to become more and more a product of the educational and cultural orientation of parents” (Kline 96). Throughout history children’s toys often reflected a miniaturised version of the adult world allowing children to role-play as imagined adult-selves. Kristina Ranalli explored parallels between the practice of drinking tea and the play-acting of the child’s tea party, particularly in the nineteenth century, as a gendered ritual of gentility; a method of socialisation and education, and an opportunity for exploratory and even transgressive play by “spontaneously creating mini-societies with rules of their own” (20). Such toys and objects were available through the Sears mail-order catalogue from the very beginning at the end of the nineteenth century (McGuire). Propelled by the post-war boom of suburban development and homeownership—that generation’s manifestation of the American Dream—concern with home décor and design was elevated among the American mainstream to a degree never before seen. There was a hunger for new, streamlined, efficient, modernist living. In his essay titled “Domesticating Modernity”, historian Jeffrey L. Meikle notes that many early modernist designers found that perhaps the most potent way to “‘domesticate’ modernism and make it more familiar was to miniaturise it; for example, to shrink the skyscraper and put it into the home as furniture or tableware” (143). Dr Timothy Blade, curator of the 1985 exhibition of girls’ toys at the University of Minnesota’s Goldstein Gallery—now the Goldstein Museum of Design—described in his introduction “a miniaturised world with little props which duplicate, however rudely, the larger world of adults” (5). Noting the power of such toys to reflect adult values of their time, Blade continues: “the microcosm of the child’s world, remarkably furnished by the miniaturised props of their parents’ world, holds many direct and implied messages about the society which brought it into being” (9). In large part, the mid-century Sears catalogues capture the spirit of an era when, as collector Thomas Holland observes, “little girls were still primarily being offered only the options of glamour, beauty and parenthood as the stuff of their fantasies” (175). Holland notes that “the Wishbooks of the fifties [and, I would add, the sixties] assumed most girls would follow in their mother’s footsteps to become full-time housewives and mommies” (1). Blade grouped toys into three categories: cooking, cleaning, and sewing. A tea set could arguably be considered part of the cooking category, but closer examination of the language used in marketing this object—“little hostesses”, et cetera—suggests an emphasis not on cooking but on serving or entertaining. This particular category was not prevalent in the era examined by Blade, but the cultural shifts of the mid-twentieth century, particularly the rapid popularisation of a suburban lifestyle, may have led to the use of entertaining as an additional distinct category of role play in the process of learning to become a “proper” homemaker. Sears and other retailers offered a wide variety of styles of toy tea sets during this era. Blade and numerous other sources observe that children’s toy furniture and appliances tended to reflect the style and aesthetic qualities of their contemporary parallels in the adult world, the better to associate the child’s objects to its adult equivalent. The toy tea set’s packaging trumpets messages intended to appeal to modernist values and identity including “Contemporary Design” and “handsome, clean-line styling for modern little hostesses”. The use of this coded marketing language, aimed particularly at parents, can be traced back several decades. In 1928 a group of American industrial and textile designers established the American Designers' Gallery in New York, in part to encourage American designers to innovate and adopt new styles such as those seen in the L’ Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes (1925) in Paris, the exposition that sparked international interest in the Art Deco or Art Moderne aesthetic. One of the gallery founders, Ilonka Karasz, a Hungarian-American industrial and textile designer who had studied in Austria and was influenced by the Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna, publicised her new style of nursery furnishings as “designed for the very modern American child” (Brown 80). Sears itself was no stranger to the appeal of such language. The term “contemporary design” was ubiquitous in catalogue copy of the nineteen-fifties and sixties, used to describe everything from draperies (1959) and bedspreads (1961) to spice racks (1964) and the Lady Kenmore portable dishwasher (1961). An emphasis on the role of design in one’s life and surroundings can be traced back to efforts by MoMA. The museum’s interest in modern design hearkens back almost to the institution’s inception, particularly in relation to industrial design and the aestheticisation of everyday objects (Marshall). Through exhibitions and in partnership with mass-market magazines, department stores and manufacturer showrooms, MoMA curators evangelised the importance of “good design” a term that can be found in use as early as 1942. What Is Good Design? followed the pattern of prior exhibitions such as What Is Modern Painting? and situated modern design at the centre of exhibitions that toured the United States in the first half of the nineteen-fifties. To MoMA and its partners, “good design” signified the narrow identification of proper taste in furniture, home decor and accessories; effectively, the establishment of a design canon. The viewpoints enshrined in these exhibitions and partnerships were highly influential on the nation’s perception of taste for decades to come, as the trickle-down effect reached a much broader segment of consumers than those that directly experienced the museum or its exhibitions (Lawrence.) This was evident not only at high-end shops such as Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s. Even mass-market retailers sought out well-known figures of modernist design to contribute to their offerings. Sears, for example, commissioned noted modernist designer and ceramicist Russel Wright to produce a variety of serving ware and decor items exclusively for the company. Notably for this study, he was also commissioned to create a toy tea set for children. The 1957 Wishbook touts the set as “especially created to delight modern little misses”. Within its Good Design series, MoMA exhibitions celebrated numerous prominent Nordic designers who were exploring simplified forms and new material technologies. In the 1968 Wishbook, the retailer describes the Porcelain Toy Tea Set as “Danish-inspired china for young moderns”. The reference to Danish design is certainly compatible with the modernist appeal; after the explosion in popularity of Danish furniture design, the term “Danish Modern” was commonly used in the nineteen-fifties and sixties as shorthand for pan-Scandinavian or Nordic design, or more broadly for any modern furniture design regardless of origin that exhibited similar characteristics. In subsequent decades the notion of a monolithic Scandinavian-Nordic design aesthetic or movement has been debunked as primarily an economically motivated marketing ploy (Olivarez et al.; Fallan). In the United States, the term “Danish Modern” became so commonly misused that the Danish Society for Arts and Crafts called upon the American Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to legally restrict the use of the labels “Danish” and “Danish Modern” to companies genuinely originating in Denmark. Coincidentally the FTC ruled on this in 1968, noting “that ‘Danish Modern’ carries certain meanings, and... that consumers might prefer goods that are identified with a foreign culture” (Hansen 451). In the case of the Porcelain Toy Tea Set examined here, Sears was not claiming that the design was “Danish” but rather “Danish-inspired”. One must wonder, was this another coded marketing ploy to communicate a sense of “Good Design” to potential customers? An examination of the formal qualities of the set’s components, particularly the simplified geometric forms and the handle style of the cups, confirms that it is unlike a traditional—say, Victorian-style—tea set. Punchard observes that during this era some American tea sets were actually being modelled on coffee services rather than traditional tea services (148). A visual comparison of other sets sold by Sears in the same year reveals a variety of cup and pot shapes—with some similar to the set in question—while others exhibit more traditional teapot and cup shapes. Coffee culture was historically prominent in Nordic cultures so there is at least a passing reference to that aspect of Nordic—if not specifically Danish—influence in the design. But what of the decorative motif? Simple curved lines were certainly prominent in Danish furniture and architecture of this era, and occasionally found in combination with straight lines, but no connection back to any specific Danish motif could be found even after consultation with experts in the field from the Museum of Danish America and the Vesterheim National Norwegian-American Museum (personal correspondence). However, knowing that the average American consumer of this era—even the design-savvy among them—consumed Scandinavian design without distinguishing between the various nations, a possible explanation could be contained in the promotion of Finnish textiles at the time. In the decade prior to the manufacture of the tea set a major design tendency began to emerge in the United States, triggered by the geometric design motifs of the Finnish textile and apparel company Marimekko. Marimekko products were introduced to the American market in 1959 via the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based retailer Design Research (DR) and quickly exploded in popularity particularly after would-be First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy appeared in national media wearing Marimekko dresses during the 1960 presidential campaign and on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine. (Thompson and Lange). The company’s styling soon came to epitomise a new youth aesthetic of the early nineteen sixties in the United States, a softer and more casual predecessor to the London “mod” influence. During this time multiple patterns were released that brought a sense of whimsy and a more human touch to classic mechanical patterns and stripes. The patterns Piccolo (1953), Helmipitsi (1959), and Varvunraita (1959), all designed by Vuokko Eskolin-Nurmesniemi offered varying motifs of parallel straight lines. Maija Isola's Silkkikuikka (1961) pattern—said to be inspired by the plumage of the Great Crested Grebe—combined parallel serpentine lines with straight and angled lines, available in a variety of colours. These and other geometrically inspired patterns quickly inundated apparel and decor markets. DR built a vastly expanded Cambridge flagship store and opened new locations in New York in 1961 and 1964, and in San Francisco in 1965 fuelled in no small part by the fact that they remained the exclusive outlet for Marimekko in the United States. It is clear that Marimekko’s approach to pattern influenced designers and manufacturers across industries. Design historian Lesley Jackson demonstrates that Marimekko designs influenced or were emulated by numerous other companies across Scandinavia and beyond (72-78). The company’s influence grew to such an extent that some described it as a “conquest of the international market” (Hedqvist and Tarschys 150). Subsequent design-forward retailers such as IKEA and Crate and Barrel continue to look to Marimekko even today for modern design inspiration. In 2016 the mass-market retailer Target formed a design partnership with Marimekko to offer an expansive limited-edition line in their stores, numbering over two hundred items. So, despite the “Danish” misnomer, it is quite conceivable that designers working for or commissioned by Sears in 1968 may have taken their aesthetic cues from Marimekko’s booming work, demonstrating a clear understanding of the contemporary high design aesthetic of the time and coding the marketing rhetoric accordingly even if incorrectly. Conclusion The Sears catalogue plays a unique role in capturing cross-sections of American culture not only as a sales tool but also in Holland’s words as “a beautifully illustrated diary of America, it’s [sic] people and the way we thought about things” (1). Applying a rhetorical and material culture analysis to the catalogue and the objects within it provides a unique glimpse into the roles these objects played in mediating relationships, transmitting values and embodying social practices, tastes and beliefs of mid-century American consumers. Adult consumers familiar with the characteristics of the culture of “Good Design” potentially could have made a connection between the simplified geometric forms of the components of the toy tea set and say the work of modernist tableware designers such as Kaj Franck, or between the set’s graphic pattern and the modernist motifs of Marimekko and its imitators. But for a much broader segment of the population with a less direct understanding of modernist aesthetics, those connections may not have been immediately apparent. The rhetorical messaging behind the objects’ packaging and marketing used class and taste signifiers such as modern, contemporary and “Danish” to reinforce this connection to effect an emotional and aspirational appeal. These messages were coded to position the set as an effective transmitter of modernist values and to target parents with the ambition to create “appropriately modern” environments for their children. References Ancestry.com. “Historic Catalogs of Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1896–1993.” <http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1670>. Baker Furniture Inc. “Design Legacy: Our Story.” n.d. <http://www.bakerfurniture.com/design-story/ legacy-of-quality/design-legacy/>. Blade, Timothy Trent. “Introduction.” Child’s Play, Woman’s Work: An Exhibition of Miniature Toy Appliances: June 12, 1985–September 29, 1985. St. Paul: Goldstein Gallery, U Minnesota, 1985. Brown, Ashley. “Ilonka Karasz: Rediscovering a Modernist Pioneer.” Studies in the Decorative Arts 8.1 (2000-1): 69–91. Cross, Gary. “Gendered Futures/Gendered Fantasies: Toys as Representatives of Changing Childhood.” American Journal of Semiotics 12.1 (1995): 289–310. Dolansky, Fanny. “Playing with Gender: Girls, Dolls, and Adult Ideals in the Roman World.” Classical Antiquity 31.2 (2012): 256–92. Fallan, Kjetil. Scandinavian Design: Alternative Histories. Berg, 2012. Folkmann, Mads Nygaard, and Hans-Christian Jensen. “Subjectivity in Self-Historicization: Design and Mediation of a ‘New Danish Modern’ Living Room Set.” Design and Culture 7.1 (2015): 65–84. Hansen, Per H. “Networks, Narratives, and New Markets: The Rise and Decline of Danish Modern Furniture Design, 1930–1970.” The Business History Review 80.3 (2006): 449–83. Hedqvist, Hedvig, and Rebecka Tarschys. “Thoughts on the International Reception of Marimekko.” Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashions, Architecture. Ed. Marianne Aav. Bard. 2003. 149–71. Highmore, Ben. The Design Culture Reader. Routledge, 2008. Holland, Thomas W. Girls’ Toys of the Fifties and Sixties: Memorable Catalog Pages from the Legendary Sears Christmas Wishbooks, 1950-1969. Windmill, 1997. Hucal, Sarah. "Scandi Crush Saga: How Scandinavian Design Took over the World." Curbed, 23 Mar. 2016. <http://www.curbed.com/2016/3/23/11286010/scandinavian-design-arne-jacobsen-alvar-aalto-muuto-artek>. Jackson, Lesley. “Textile Patterns in an International Context: Precursors, Contemporaries, and Successors.” Marimekko: Fabrics, Fashions, Architecture. Ed. Marianne Aav. Bard. 2003. 44–83. Kline, Stephen. “The Making of Children’s Culture.” The Children’s Culture Reader. Ed. Henry Jenkins. New York: NYU P, 1998. 95–109. Lawrence, Sidney. “Declaration of Function: Documents from the Museum of Modern Art’s Design Crusade, 1933-1950.” Design Issues 2.1 (1985): 65–77. Marshall, Jennifer Jane. Machine Art 1934. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2012. McGuire, Sheila. “Playing House: Sex-Roles and the Child’s World.” Child’s Play, Woman’s Work: An Exhibition of Miniature Toy Appliances : June 12, 1985–September 29, 1985. St. Paul: Goldstein Gallery, U Minnesota, 1985. Meikel, Jeffrey L. “Domesticating Modernity: Ambivalence and Appropriation, 1920–1940.” Designing Modernity; the Arts of Reform and Persuasion. Ed. Wendy Kaplan. Thames & Hudson, 1995. 143–68. O’Brien, Marion, and Aletha C. Huston. “Development of Sex-Typed Play Behavior in Toddlers.” Developmental Psychology, 21.5 (1985): 866–71. Olivarez, Jennifer Komar, Jukka Savolainen, and Juulia Kauste. Finland: Designed Environments. Minneapolis Institute of Arts and Nordic Heritage Museum, 2014. Oswell, David. The Agency of Children: From Family to Global Human Rights. Cambridge UP, 2013. Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method.” Winterthur Portfolio 17.1 (1982): 1–19. Punchard, Lorraine May. Child’s Play: Play Dishes, Kitchen Items, Furniture, Accessories. Punchard, 1982. Ranalli, Kristina. An Act Apart: Tea-Drinking, Play and Ritual. Master's thesis. U Delaware, 2013. Sears Corporate Archives. “What Is a Sears Modern Home?” n.d. <http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm>. "Target Announces New Design Partnership with Marimekko: It’s Finnish, Target Style." Target, 2 Mar. 2016. <http://corporate.target.com/article/2016/03/marimekko-for-target>. Teglasi, Hedwig. “Children’s Choices of and Value Judgments about Sex-Typed Toys and Occupations.” Journal of Vocational Behavior 18.2 (1981): 184–95. Thompson, Jane, and Alexandra Lange. Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living to American Homes. Chronicle, 2010.

The labyrinth is probably the most universal trope of complexity. Deriving from pre-Greek labyrinthos, a word denoting “maze, large building with intricate underground passages”, and possibly related to Lydian labrys, which signifies “double-edged axe,” symbol of royal power, the notion of the labyrinth primarily evokes the Minoan Palace in Crete and the myth of the Minotaur. According to this myth, the Minotaur, a monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull, was born to Pesiphae, king Minos’s wife, who mated with a bull when the king of Crete was besieging Athens. Upon his return, Minos commanded the artist Daedalus to construct a monumental building of inter-connected rooms and passages, at the center of which the King sought to imprison the monstrous sign of his disgrace. The Minotaur required human sacrifice every couple of years, until it was defeated by the Athenian prince Theuseus, who managed to extricate himself from the maze by means of a clue of thread, given to him by Minos’s enamored daughter, Ariadne (Parandowski 238-43). If the Cretan myth establishes the labyrinth as a trope of complexity, this very complexity associates labyrinthine design not only with disorientation but also with superb artistry. As pointed out by Penelope Reed Doob, the labyrinth is an inherently ambiguous construct (39-63). It presumes a double perspective: those imprisoned inside, whose vision ahead and behind is severely constricted, are disoriented and terrified; whereas those who view it from outside or from above – as a diagram – admire its structural sophistication. Labyrinths thus simultaneously embody order and chaos, clarity and confusion, unity (a single structure) and multiplicity (many paths). Whereas the modern, reductive view equates the maze with confusion and disorientation, the labyrinth is actually a signifier with two contradictory signifieds. Not only are all labyrinths intrinsically double, they also fall into two distinct, though related, types. The paradigm represented by the Cretan maze is mainly derived from literature and myth. It is a multicursal model, consisting of a series of forking paths, each bifurcation requiring new choice. The second type is the unicursal maze. Found mainly in the visual arts, such as rock carvings or coin ornamentation, its structural basis is a single path, twisting and turning, but entailing no bifurcations. Although not equally bewildering, both paradigms are equally threatening: in the multicursal construct the maze-walker may be entrapped in a repetitious pattern of wrong choices, whereas in the unicursal model the traveler may die of exhaustion before reaching the desired end, the heart of the labyrinth. In spite of their differences, the basic similarities between the two paradigms may explain why they were both included in the same linguistic category. The labyrinth represents a road-model, and as such it is essentially teleological. Most labyrinths of antiquity and of the Middle Ages were designed with the thought of reaching the center. But the fact that each labyrinth has a center does not necessarily mean that the maze-walker is aware of its existence. Moreover, reaching the center is not always to be desired (in case it conceals a lurking Minotaur), and once the center is reached, the maze-walker may never find the way back. Besides signifying complexity and ambiguity, labyrinths thus also symbolically evoke the danger of eternal imprisonment, of inextricability. This sinister aspect is intensified by the recursive aspect of labyrinthine design, by the mirroring effect of the paths. In reflecting on the etymology of the word ‘maze’ (rather than the Greek/Latin labyrinthos/labyrinthus), Irwin observes that it derives from the Swedish masa, signifying “to dream, to muse,” and suggests that the inherent recursion of labyrinthine design offers an apt metaphor for the uniquely human faculty of self-reflexitivity, of thought turning upon itself (95). Because of its intriguing aspect and wealth of potential implications, the labyrinth has become a category that is not only formal, but also conceptual and symbolic. The ambiguity of the maze, its conflation of overt complexity with underlying order and simplicity, was explored in ideological systems rooted in a dualistic world-view. In the early Christian era, the labyrinth was traditionally presented as a metaphor for the universe: divine creation based on a perfect design, perceived as chaotic due to the shortcomings of human comprehension. In the Middle-Ages, the labyrinthine attributes of imprisonment and limited perception were reflected in the view of life as a journey inside a moral maze, in which man’s vision was constricted because of his fallen nature (Cazenave 348-350). The maze was equally conceptualized in dynamic terms and used as a metaphor for mental processes. More specifically, the labyrinth has come to signify intellectual confusion, and has therefore become most pertinent in literary contexts that valorize rational thought. And the rationalistic genre par excellence is detective fiction. The labyrinth may serve as an apt metaphor for the world of detective fiction because it accurately conveys the tacit assumptions of the genre – the belief in the existence of order, causality and reason underneath the chaos of perceived phenomena. Such optimistic belief is ardently espoused by the putative detective in Paul Auster’s metafictional novella City of Glass: He had always imagined that the key to good detective work was a close observation of details. The more accurate the scrutiny, the more successful the results. The implication was that human behavior could be understood, that beneath the infinite façade of gestures, tics and silences there was finally a coherence, an order, a source of motivation. (67) In this brief but eloquent passage Auster conveys, through the mind of his sleuth, the central tenets of classical detective fiction. These tenets are both ontological and epistemological. The ontological aspect is subsumed in man’s hopeful reliance on “a coherence, an order, a source of motivation” underlying the messiness and blood of the violent deed. The epistemological aspect is aptly formulated by Michael Holquist, who argues that the fictional world of detective stories is rooted in the Scholastic principle of adequatio rei et intellectus, the adequation of mind to things (157). And if both human reality and phenomenal reality are governed by reason, the mind, given enough time, can understand everything. The mind’s representative is the detective. He is the embodiment of inquisitive intellect, and his superior powers of observation and deduction transform an apparent mystery into an incontestable solution. The detective sifts through the evidence, assesses the relevance of data and the reliability of witnesses. But, first of foremost, he follows clues – and the clue, the most salient element of the detective story, links the genre with the myth of the Cretan labyrinth. For in its now obsolete spelling, the word ‘clew’ denotes a ball of thread, and thus foregrounds the similarity between the mental process of unraveling a crime mystery and the traveler’s progress inside the maze (Irwin 179). The chief attributes of the maze – circuitousness, enclosure, and inextricability – associate it with another convention of detective fiction, the trope of the locked room. This convention, introduced in Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” a text traditionally regarded as the first analytic detective story, establishes the locked room as the ultimate affront to reason: a hermetically sealed space which no one could have penetrated or exited and in which a brutal crime has nevertheless been committed. But the affront to reason is only apparent. In Poe’s ur-text of the genre, the violent deed is committed by an orangutan, a brutal and abused beast that enters and escapes from the seemingly locked room through a half-closed window. As accurately observed by Holquist, in the world of detective fiction “there are no mysteries, there is only incorrect reasoning” (157). And the correct reasoning, dubbed by Poe “ratiocination”, is the process of logical deduction. Deduction is an enchainment of syllogisms, in which a conclusion inevitably follows from two valid premises; as Dupin elegantly puts it, “the deductions are the sole proper ones and … the suspicion arises inevitably from them as a single result” (Poe 89). Applying this rigorous mental process, the detective re-arranges the pieces of the puzzle into a coherent and meaningful sequence of events. In other words – he creates a narrative. This brings us back to Irwin’s observation about the recursive aspect of the maze. Like the labyrinth, detective fiction is self-reflexive. It is a narrative form which foregrounds narrativity, for the construction of a meaningful narrative is the protagonist’s and the reader’s principal task. Logical deduction, the main activity of the fictional sleuth, does not allow for ambiguity. In classical detective fiction, the labyrinth is associated with the messiness and violence of crime and contrasted with the clarity of the solution (the inverse is true of postmodernist detective mysteries). The heart of the labyrinth is the solution, the vision of truth. This is perhaps the most important aspect of the detective genre: the premise that truth exists and that it can be known. In “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” the initially insoluble puzzle is eventually transformed into a coherent narrative, in which a frantic orangutan runs into the street escaping the abuse of its master, climbs a rod and seeks refuge in a room inhabited by two women, brutally slashes them in confusion, and then flees the room in the same way he penetrated it. The sequence of events reconstructed by Dupin is linear, unequivocal, and logically satisfying. This is not the case with the ‘hard boiled’, American variant of the detective genre, which influenced the inception of film noir. Although the novels of Hammett, Chandler or Cain are structured around crime mysteries, these works problematize most of the tacit premises of analytic detective fiction and re-define its narrative form. For one, ‘hard boiled’ fiction obliterates the dualism between overt chaos and underlying order, between the perceived messiness of crime and its underlying logic. Chaos becomes all-encompassing, engulfing the sleuth as well as the reader. No longer the epitome of a superior, detached intellect, the detective becomes implicated in the mystery he investigates, enmeshed in a labyrinthine sequence of events whose unraveling does not necessarily produce meaning. As accurately observed by Telotte, “whether [the] characters are trying to manipulate others, or simply hoping to figure out how their plans went wrong, they invariably find that things do not make sense” (7). Both ‘hard-boiled’ fiction and its cinematic progeny implicitly portray the dissolution of social order. In film noir, this thematic pursuit finds a formal equivalent in the disruption of traditional narrative paradigm. As noted by Bordwell and Telotte, among others, the paradigm underpinning classical Hollywood cinema in the years 1917-1960 is characterized by a seemingly objective point of view, adherence to cause-effect logic, use of goal-oriented characters and a progression toward narrative closure (Bordwell 157, Telotte 3). In noir films, on the other hand, the devices of flashback and voice-over implicitly challenge conventionally linear narratives, while the use of the subjective camera shatters the illusion of objective truth (Telotte 3, 20). To revert to the central concern of the present paper, in noir cinema the form coincides with the content. The fictional worlds projected by the ‘hard boiled’ genre and its noir cinematic descendent offer no hidden realm of meaning underneath the chaos of perceived phenomena, and the trope of the labyrinth is stripped of its transcendental, comforting dimension. The labyrinth is the controlling visual metaphor of the Coen Brothers’ neo-noir film The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001). The film’s title refers to its main protagonist: a poker-faced, taciturn barber, by the name of Ed Crane. The entire film is narrated by Ed, incarcerated in a prison cell. He is writing his life story, at the commission of a men’s magazine whose editor wants to probe the feelings of a convict facing death. Ed says he is not unhappy to die. Exonerated of a crime he committed and convicted of a crime he did not, Ed feels his life is a labyrinth. He does not understand it, but he hopes that death will provide the answer. Ed’s final vision of life as a bewildering maze, and his hope of seeing the master-plan after death, ostensibly refer to the inherent dualism of the labyrinth, the notion of underlying order manifest through overt chaos. They offer the flicker of an optimistic closure, which subscribes to the traditional Christian view of the universe as a perfect design, perceived as chaos due to the shortcomings of human comprehension. But this interpretation is belied by the film’s final scene. Shot in blindingly white light, suggesting the protagonist’s revelation, the screen is perfectly empty, except for the electric chair in the center. And when Ed slowly walks towards the site of his execution, he has a sudden fantasy of the overhead lights as the round saucers of UFOs. The film’s visual metaphors ironically subvert Ed’s metaphysical optimism. They cast a view of human life as a maze of emptiness, to borrow the title of one of Borges’s best-known stories. The only center of this maze is death, the electric chair; the only transcendence, faith in God and in after life, makes as much sense as the belief in flying saucers. The Coen Brothers thus simultaneously construct and deconstruct the traditional symbolism of the labyrinth, evoking (through Ed’s innocent hope) its promise of underlying order, and subverting this promise through the images that dominate the screen. The transcendental dimension of the trope of the labyrinth, its promise of a hidden realm of meaning and value, is consistently subverted throughout the film. On the level of plot, the film presents a crisscrossed pattern of misguided intentions and tragi-comic misinterpretations. The film’s protagonist, Ed Crane, is estranged from his own life; neither content nor unhappy, he is passive, taking things as they come. Thus he condones Doris’s, his wife’s, affair with her employer, Big Dave, reacting only when he perceives an opportunity to profit from their liason. This opportunity presents itself in the form of Creighton Tolliver, a garrulous client, who shares with Ed his fail-proof scheme of making big money from the new invention of dry cleaning. All he needs to carry out his plan, confesses Creighton, is an investment of ten thousand dollars. The barber decides to take advantage of this accidental encounter in order to change his life. He writes an anonymous extortion letter to Big Dave, threatening to expose his romance with Doris and wreck his marriage and his financial position (Dave’s wife, a rich heiress, owns the store that Dave runs). Dave confides in Ed about the letter; he suspects the blackmailer is a con man that tried to engage him in a dry-cleaning scheme. Although reluctant to part with the money, which he has been saving to open a new store to be managed by Doris, Big Dave eventually gives in. Obviously, although unbeknownst to Big Dave, it is Ed who collects the money and passes it to Creighton, so as to become a silent partner in the dry cleaning enterprise. But things do not work out as planned. Big Dave, who believes Creighton to be his blackmailer, follows him to his apartment in an effort to retrieve the ten thousand dollars. A fight ensues, in which Creighton gets killed, not before revealing to Dave Ed’s implication in his dry-cleaning scheme. Furious, Dave summons Ed, confronts him with Creighton’s story and physically attacks him. Ed grabs a knife that is lying about and accidentally kills Big Dave. The following day, two policemen arrive at the barbershop. Ed is certain they came to arrest him, but they have come to arrest Doris. The police have discovered that she has been embezzling from Dave’s store (Doris is an accountant), and they suspect her of Dave’s murder. Ed hires Freddy Riedenschneider, the best and most expensive criminal attorney, to defend his wife. The attorney is not interested in truth; he is looking for a version that will introduce a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury. At some point, Ed confesses that it is he who killed Dave, but Riedenschneider dismisses his confession as an inadequate attempt to save Doris’s neck. He concocts a version of his own, but does not get the chance to win the trial; the case is dismissed, as Doris is found hanged in her cell. After his wife’s death, Ed gets lonely. He takes interest in Birdy, the young daughter of the town lawyer (whom he initially approached for Doris’s defense). Birdy plays the piano; Ed believes she is a prodigy, and wants to become her agent. He takes her for an audition to a French master pianist, who decides that the girl is nothing special. Disenchanted, they drive back home. Birdy tells Ed, not for the first time, that she doesn’t really want to be a pianist. She hasn’t been thinking of a career; if at all, she would like to be a vet. But she is very grateful. As a token of her gratitude, she tries to perform oral sex on Ed. The car veers; they have an accident. When he comes to, Ed faces two policemen, who tell him he is arrested for the murder of Creighton Tolliver. The philosophical purport of the labyrinth metaphor is suggested in a scene preceding Doris’s trial, in which her cocky attorney justifies his defense strategy. To support his argument, he has recourse to the theory of some German scientist, called either Fritz or Werner, who claimed that truth changes with the eye of the beholder. Science has determined that there is no objective truth, says Riedenschneider; consequently, the question of what really happened is irrelevant. All a good attorney can do, he concludes, is present a plausible narrative to the jury. Freddy Riedenschneider’s seemingly nonchalant exposition is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Succinctly put, the principle postulates that the more precisely the position of a subatomic particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. What follows is that concepts such as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we measure them; or, in Heisenberg’s words, “the ‘path’ comes into existence only when we observe it” (qtd. in Cassidy). Heisenberg’s discovery had momentous scientific and philosophical implications. For one, it challenged the notion of causality in nature. The law of causality assumes that if we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future; in this formulation, suggests Heisenberg, “it is not the conclusion that is wrong, but the premises” (qtd. in Cassidy). In other words, we can never know the present exactly, and on the basis of this exact knowledge, predict the future. More importantly, the uncertainty principle seems to collapse the distinction between subjective and objective reality, between consciousness and the world of phenomena, suggesting that the act of perception changes the reality perceived (Hofstadter 239). In spite of its light tone, the attorney’s confused allusion to quantum theory conveys the film’s central theme: the precarious nature of truth. In terms of plot, this theme is suggested by the characters’ constant misinterpretation: Big Dave believes he is blackmailed by Creighton Tolliver; Ed thinks Birdy is a genius, Birdy thinks that Ed expects sex from her, and Ann, Dave’s wife, puts her faith in UFOs. When the characters do not misjudge their reality, they lie about it: Big Dave bluffs about his war exploits, Doris cheats on Ed and Big Dave cheats on his wife and embezzles from her. And when the characters are honest and tell the truth, they are neither believed nor rewarded: Ed confesses his crime, but his confession is impatiently dismissed, Doris keeps her accounts straight but is framed for fraud and murder; Ed’s brother in law and partner loyally supports him, and as a result, goes bankrupt. If truth cannot be known, or does not exist, neither does justice. Throughout the film, the wires of innocence and guilt are constantly crossed; the innocent are punished (Doris, Creighton Tolliver), the guilty are exonerated of crimes they committed (Ed of killing Dave) and convicted of crimes they did not (Ed of killing Tolliver). In this world devoid of a metaphysical dimension, the mindless processes of nature constitute the only reality. They are represented by the incessant, pointless growth of hair. Ed is a barber; he deals with hair and is fascinated by hair. He wonders how hair is a part of us and we throw it to dust; he is amazed by the fact that hair continues to grow even after death. At the beginning of the film we see him docilely shave his wife’s legs. In a mirroring scene towards the end, the camera zooms in on Ed’s own legs, shaved before his electrocution. The leitmotif of hair, the image of the electric chair, the recurring motif of UFOs – all these metaphoric elements convey the Coen Brothers’ view of the human condition and build up to Ed’s final vision of life as a labyrinth. Life is a labyrinth because there is no necessary connection between cause and effect; because crime is dissociated from accountability and punishment; because what happened can never be ascertained and human knowledge consists only of a maze of conflicting, or overlapping, versions. The center of the existential labyrinth is death, and the exit, the belief in an after-life, is no more real than the belief in aliens. The labyrinth is an inherently ambiguous construct. Its structural attributes of doubling, recursion and inextricability yield a wealth of ontological and epistemological implications. Traditionally used as an emblem of overt complexity concealing underlying order and symmetry, the maze may aptly illustrate the tacit premises of the analytic detective genre. But this purport of the maze symbolism is ironically inverted in noir and neo-noir films. As suggested by its title, the Coen Brothers’ movie is marked by absence, and the absence of the man who wasn’t there evokes a more disturbing void. That void is the center of the existential labyrinth. References Auster, Paul. City of Glass. The New York Trilogy. London and Boston: Faber and Faber, 1990. 1-132. Bordwell, David. Narration in the Fiction Film. Madison: Wisconsin UP, 1985. Cassidy, David. “Quantum Mechanics, 1925-1927.” Werner Heisenberg (1901-1978). American Institute of Physics, 1998. 5 June 2007 http://www.aip.org/history/heisenberg/p08c.htm>. Cazenave, Michel, ed. Encyclopédie des Symboles. Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1996. Coen, Joel, and Ethan Coen, dirs. The Man Who Wasn’t There. 2001. Doob, Penelope Reed. The Idea of the Labyrinth. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1992. Hofstadter, Douglas. I Am a Strange Loop. New York: Basic Books, 2007. Holquist, Michael. “Whodunit and Other Questions: Metaphysical Detective Stories in Post-War Fiction.” The Poetics of Murder. Eds. Glenn W. Most and William W. Stowe. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1983. 149-174. Irwin, John T. The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges and the Analytic Detective Story. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994. Parandowski, Jan. Mitologia. Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1960. Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Illustrated Stories and Poems. London: Chancellor Press, 1994. 103-114. Telotte, J.P. Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir. Urbana: Illinois UP, 1989. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Shiloh, Ilana. "A Vision of Complex Symmetry: The Labyrinth in The Man Who Wasn’t There." M/C Journal 10.3 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/09-shiloh.php>. APA Style Shiloh, I. (Jun. 2007) "A Vision of Complex Symmetry: The Labyrinth in The Man Who Wasn’t There," M/C Journal, 10(3). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0706/09-shiloh.php>.

Lovecraft applies the term "Outsider" to this thing or entity, the Thing, which arrives and passes at the edge, which is linear yet multiple, "teeming, seething, swelling, foaming, spreading like an infectious disease, this nameless horror." Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus (1987, 245) In the opening sequence to John Carpenter's The Thing (Universal Pictures, 1982), a lone husky flees a Norwegian gunman across the Antarctic tundra. The dog is resuced by an American scientific team and the gunman is killed, leaving no explanation for the hunt. Later, when the dog is caged along with the American husky pack, it mutates violently, attacking the other dogs and members of the expedition. It becomes apparent that what the Americans have taken into their isolated community is an alien lifeform capable of adopting the form of creatures it kills, and the team have no way of knowing who has been replicated/replaced already. Given that Carpenter unashamedly borrows images and dialogue from Howard Hawks in so many of his other films, it is ironic that this film should self-consciously avoid borrowing from Hawks's The Thing From Another World (RKO, 1951 [Dir: Christian Nyby]), of which it is ostensibly a remake. Hawks's Arctic Cold War story is replaced by an Antarctic horror tale-the two films are literally poles apart. The obvious key to this difference is that Rob Bottin's special effects wizardry enables Carpenter (through Bill Lancaster's screenplay) to adhere more closely to the plot of John W. Campbell's 1938 novella ("Who Goes There?") about a shape-shifting menace generating paranoia among inhabitants of a small community. Hawks's film (screenplay by Charles Lederer) also hinges on a sense of paranoia, but its source is unequivocal: Hawks's alien is little more than a blood-sucking vegetable from space. Paranoia in Carpenter's film has something to do with the fear of being killed, but is also as much a matter of not knowing what form the enemy is taking at any point in time. Of course, the special effects do not contribute to this uncertainty-the paranoia is at its most intense when things appear to be normal. Yet this intensity is fed in the first instance by knowing the excesses of which "the thing" is capable when forced to reveal itself. The irony of this remake not being made in the image of its original is compounded by the fact that Carpenter's film was panned by critics and failed badly at the box office on its release in 1982-by contrast, the 1951 version is widely considered to be a classic, credited with starting the alien SF film boom of the 1950s. More recently, Carpenter's film has acquired something of a cult status. Indeed, a 1999 poll by British Total Film magazine rated The Thing as the eleventh scariest film of all time. Yet clearly the "gore factor" which gives to such a film its cult status was a contributing factor in its initial failure, although I think it is necessary to be sure of what we mean when we say this. The timing of the release of The Thing is generally thought to have been a major factor, based on the assumption that a filmgoing public still enamoured with Spielberg's E.T. was always going to be unreceptive to Carpenter's shapeshifting horror. What may be even more pertinent was that Carpenter's horror was released onto the big screen about the time that this same filmgoing public was coming to terms with a new "horror": the advent of AIDS. I recently read a commentary on the resurgence of interest in The Thing, in which the author claims that Carpenter's film functioned in 1982 as a cold war metaphor after the manner of the 1951 original, and that it is the potential AIDS resonances in the film-in as much as "the only way to detect alien infection is a 'blood test'"-which strike a chord with newer audiences. To my way of thinking, Bryant Frazer's review for Deep Focus provides a more appropriate assessment of the immediate context for The Thing when he categorises it "as part of a movement in genre film that dealt with biological horror" along with films like Ridley Scott's Alien and David Cronenberg's Scanners and Videodrome. As Frazer observes, these films provide "unsettling visions of anxiety over the physical nature of our bodies, and of the possibility that our essential natures may be changed by alien entities, by pollutants and disease". Yet Carpenter's film sits uneasily alongside other biohorror films, perhaps because it is such an extreme product of this movement. Scott's virtually indestructible xenomorph literally burst (through John Hurt's chest) onto cinema screens to terrorise audiences by its capacity to turn human beings into expendable commodities (mere links on the food chain or hosts along the creature's parasitic life cycle). Yet this alien's capacity for the spectacular kill is dwarfed by Carpenter's outrageous shapeshifter, sprouting tentacles, serpentine heads, razor-sharp teeth, and other amorphous extensions from what would seem to be normal bodies. Mainstream cinema audiences may have loved Spielberg's tubby, telecommunicating extraterrestrial enough to shun Carpenter's killer, but it may be that even fans of Scott's space monster might have failed to share in the spirit of Carpenter's knowing wink at excess-recall the response of Windows (Thomas Waites) when a severed head sprouts legs and scuttles away: "You've got to be fucking kidding." The irony is that, in spite of its obvious excesses, Carpenter's alien is still closer to home than Scott's: the latter occupies the human body by infestation, the former by infection. Frazer makes explicit the particular resonance of this difference in the biohorror film: "The Thing can be read as a parable of the self-destructive 'witch-hunt' mentality, or of the ravages that an insidious killer like AIDS (just blossoming as The Thing was being shot) can wreak on the survivors, as well as those infected." The point to be made here is that the excesses of Carpenter's film may not, in and of themselves, be sufficient to explain its capacity to unnerve its potential audience at the time of its release. In 1982, the syndrome formerly identified as GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) was renamed AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) as it was discovered that the agent, "possibly a virus that could be spread through blood," could affect people other than just gay men: the first recipient by blood transfusion was identified in the United States as were the first affected infants (Avert: AIDS History). Perhaps unwittingly, Carpenter's film mirrors the spread of discourses about the AIDS syndrome, as much as its monster mirrors the virus itself. The fact that the protagonists in the film are all men living in isolation provides a none too subtle reference to the gay male community to which it was initially thought that GRID could be solely attributed. In the film, as in society, the potential for the menace to spread beyond this immediate community is identified with the knowledge that it spreads through blood, a knowledge that translates into moral panic. When Copper (Richard A. Dysart) discovers through a computer simulation-closely resembling a simulation called "life," which I remember playing in the 1980s-that "the thing" could consume the human race within days, he determines to stop the spread, and when Copper dies, Blair (Wilfrid Grimley) responds even more violently by trying to cut the team off from its external contacts and supplies. Thus, what the film reflects back to its audience is a recognition that the spread of panic associated with AIDS is every bit as insidious as the spread of the virus associated with the same syndrome. This panic operates by isolating and targeting the victims as though they are the infection themselves, potential killers. Initially, this could be done at group levels-for example, the gay male community at first, then drug users, and so on-yet it ultimately proceeds by reducing the limits of the abject, until all that is left is to isolate the individual in each instance. To have been infected is in itself enough to be identified as having the characteristics of any number of the social evils associated with the spread of the virus, but it is nevertheless enough also to be characterised as a threat of infection to the rest of the human race. In this sense, the victim becomes the virus. The reader may now sense the relevance of the reference to Deleuze and Guattari with which I framed this essay at the outset. The epigraph is taken from "1730: Becoming-Intense, Becoming-Animal, Becoming-Imperceptible . . ." (A Thousand Plateaus, 1987, 232-309), an essay that remains the duo's most sustained elaboration of the processes of "becoming." Borrowing the concept for my purposes here, it can be said that The Thing represents in spectacular form the process of victim becoming virus via mechanisms of social isolation: alienation is literalised in the becoming-alien of members of an already isolated community. Central to an understanding of becoming as a process is the relationship between single and multiple phenomena; "between the pack and the loner; between mass contagion and preferential alliance; between pure multiplicity and the exceptional individual" (244). In The Thing, we may recall, the first inclination we have that something is amiss is that a lone husky (nominally a pack animal) is fleeing a crazed gunman. Deleuze and Guattari enable the concept of the pack to fade into the process of contagion. When the isolated animal is restored to a pack existence, contagion is immediately literalised in the film: it first seems to act as though it is sick, and then we are introduced to the spectacle of this shapeshifter in extremis, spreading itself out into the pack, and then into the community. From this early point in the film, we can no longer be in any doubt that becoming-alien through the mechanism of contagion has nothing to do with the coming into reality of a higher order of being, or of the realisation of potential states, etcetera. Commenting on becoming, Catherine Malabou points out that the Deleuzo-Guattarian understanding is a removal of the concept from "the Hegelian definition of an intermediate state between being and nothingness," as it is "not a hesitation between the abyssal vertigo of absence of form and the security of a particular incarnation" ("Who's Afraid," 1996, 125). For it is precisely at the moment that the animal is ushered towards its apparent destiny at the border of the pack that it lashes out against the security of the pack existence. Instead, The Thing offers a representation of the imposition of the molecular onto the incarnate. For this reason, I consider the film to be a neat container for what remains one of Deleuze and Guattari's more elusive concepts. It demonstrates that "becoming" includes processes at every level from the microbial to the communal, leading us to conclude that the spread of the contagion is inseparable from the panic that consumes the community: they are precisely one and the same process of becoming-alien. For a film to visually represent this relation, of course, what must be rendered visible are the intensities that characterise all becomings, hence the visual excesses to which it goes. It is to these intensities, more so than just the "gore factor" alone, that I think audiences react when they view The Thing, cognisant of the spectre of AIDS. The shapeshifter's metamorphoses are not merely excessive, they are intense, which is to say that they are tenuous (and yet tenable) threads in the process of becoming-alien, which we have seen cuts across the molecular and the communal to unite the social with the physiological. Clifford M. Skoog observes that Deleuze's use of biological terminology with reference to social phenomena and their effects is not strictly referential, nor is it metaphorical: "His work in any case powerfully evokes the kinds of processes we observe in life at its cellular and molecular levels, and is especially provocative concerning the extent to which we might look at language and social life as incorporating a 're-incarnation' of life's most elemental processes" (Thinking's Legacy and the Evolution of Experience, 1998). Carpenter's film, I suggest, evokes much the same connection between discursive and social realities and the elemental stuff of which we are made, all of which is fleeting. In reflecting back to us the social context for the "witch-hunt" mentality, or by literalising the process by which the victim becomes the contagion in the eyes of the witch-hunters, The Thing also provides a stark reminder of the physical limits by which we are bound. Held in the grip of contagion, as our bodies succumb at the cellular level to infection, do we somehow cease to be ourselves? Yet the question is not one of physical essences, as our "selves" are defined as much in the social extensions of the body, in the eye of the beholder, as it were, a Deleuzian point brought home to the audience with intensity by The Thing. Becoming, in this sense, is an unbecoming thing, for it is the very opposite of belonging. It turns away from well-being, from being well, or perhaps from being per se. Do we therefore turn away from becoming? Or, as the resurgence in interest in The Thing in the last few years might prompt us to ask, have we begun at last to look back at the unbecoming things from which we have averted our gaze for so long. References Deleuze, Gilles & Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (1987). Malabou, Catherine. "Who's Afraid of Hegelian Wolves?" Deleuze: A Critical Reader. Ed. Paul Patton. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers (1996): 114-38.

It is January 1930 and the restless Southern Ocean is heaving itself up against the frozen coast of Eastern Antarctica. For hundreds of kilometres, this coastline consists entirely of ice: although Antarctica is a continent, only 2% of its surface consists of exposed rock; the rest is buried under a vast frozen mantle. But there is rock in this coastal scene: silhouetted against the glaring white of the glacial shelf, a barren island humps up out of the water. Slowly and cautiously, the Discovery approaches the island through uncharted waters; the crew’s eyes strain in the frigid air as they scour the ocean’s surface for ship-puncturing bergs. The approach to the island is difficult, but Captain Davis maintains the Discovery on its course as the wind howls in the rigging. Finally, the ship can go no further; the men lower a boat into the tossing sea. They pull hard at the oars until the boat is abreast of the island, and then they ram the bow against its icy littoral. Now one of the key moments of this exploratory expedition—officially titled the British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE)—is about to occur: the expedition is about to succeed in its primary spatial mission. Douglas Mawson, the Australian leader of the expedition, puts his feet onto the island and ascends to its bleak summit. There, he and his crew assemble a mound of loose stones and insert into it the flagpole they’ve carried with them across the ocean. Mawson reads an official proclamation of territorial annexation (see Bush 118-19), the photographer Frank Hurley shoots the moment on film, and one of the men hauls the Union Jack up the pole. Until the Australian Flags Act of 1953, the Union Jack retained seniority over the Australian flag. BANZARE took place before the 1931 Statute of Westminster, which gave full political and foreign policy independence to Commonwealth countries, thus Mawson claimed Antarctic space on behalf of Britain. He did so with the understanding that Britain would subsequently grant Australia title to its own Antarctican space. Britain did so in 1933. In the freezing wind, the men take off their hats, give three cheers for the King, and sing “God Save the King.” They deposit a copy of the proclamation into a metal canister and affix this to the flagpole; for a moment they admire the view. But there is little time to savour the moment, or the feeling of solid ground under their cold feet: the ship is waiting and the wind is growing in force. The men row back to the Discovery; Mawson returns to his cabin and writes up the event. A crucial moment in Antarctica’s spatial history has occurred: on what Mawson has aptly named Proclamation Island, Antarctica has been produced as Australian space. But how, exactly, does this production of Antarctica as a spatial possession work? How does this moment initiate the transformation of six million square kilometres of Antarctica—42% of the continent—into Australian space? The answer to this question lies in three separate, but articulated cultural technologies: representation, the body of the explorer, and international territorial law. When it comes to thinking about ‘turf’, Antarctica may at first seem an odd subject of analysis. Physically, Antarctica is a turfless space, an entire continent devoid of grass, plants, land-based animals, or trees. Geopolitically, Antarctica remains the only continent on which no turf wars have been fought: British and Argentinian soldiers clashed over the occupation of a Peninsular base in the Hope Bay incident of 1952 (Dodds 56), but beyond this somewhat bathetic skirmish, Antarctican space has never been the object of physical conflict. Further, as Antarctica has no indigenous human population, its space remains free of the colonial turfs of dispossession, invasion, and loss. The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 formalised Antarctica’s geopolitically turfless status, stipulating that the continent was to be used for peaceful purposes only, and stating that Antarctica was an internationally shared space of harmony and scientific goodwill. So why address Antarctican spatiality here? Two motivations underpin this article’s anatomising of Australia’s Antarctican space. First, too often Antarctica is imagined as an entirely homogeneous space: a vast white plain dotted here and there along its shifting coast by identical scientific research stations inhabited by identical bearded men. Similarly, the complexities of Antarctica’s geopolitical and legal spaces are often overlooked in favour of a vision of the continent as a site of harmonious uniformity. While it is true that the bulk of Antarctican space is ice, the assumption that its cultural spatialities are identical is far from the case: this article is part of a larger endeavour to provide a ‘thick’ description of Antarctican spatialities, one which points to the heterogeneity of cultural geographies of the polar south. The Australian polar spatiality installed by Mawson differs radically from that of, for example, Chile; in a continent governed by international consensus, it is crucial that the specific cultural geographies and spatial histories of Treaty participants be clearly understood. Second, attending to complexities of Antarctican spatiality points up the intersecting cultural technologies involved in spatial production, cultural technologies so powerful that, in the case of Antarctica, they transformed nearly half of a distant continent into Australian sovereign space. This article focuses its critical attention on three core spatialising technologies, a trinary that echoes Henri Lefebvre’s influential tripartite model of spatiality: this article attends to Australian Antarctic representation, practise, and the law. At the turn of the twentieth century, Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen trooped over the polar plateau, and Antarctic space became a setting for symbolic Edwardian performances of heroic imperial masculinity and ‘frontier’ hardiness. At the same time, a second, less symbolic, type of Antarctican spatiality began to evolve: for the first time, Antarctica became a potential territorial possession; it became the object of expansionist geopolitics. Based in part on Scott’s expeditions, Britain declared sovereignty over an undefined area of the continent in 1908, and France declared Antarctic space its own in 1924; by the late 1920s, what John Agnew and Stuart Corbridge refer to as the nation-state ontology—that is, the belief that land should and must be divided into state-owned units—had arrived in Antarctica. What the Adelaide Advertiser’s 8 April 1929 headline referred to as “A Scramble for Antarctica” had begun. The British Imperial Conference of 1926 concluded that the entire continent should become a possession of Britain and its dominions, New Zealand and Australia (Imperial). Thus, in 1929, BANZARE set sail into the brutal Southern Ocean. Although the expedition included various scientists, its primary mission was not to observe Antarctican space, but to take possession of it: as the expedition’s instructions from Australian Prime Minister Bruce stated, BANZARE’s mission was to produce Antarctica as Empire’s—and by extension, Australia’s—sovereign space (Jacka and Jacka 251). With the moment described in the first paragraph of this article, along with four other such moments, BANZARE succeeded; just how it did so is the focus of this work. It is by now axiomatic in spatial studies that the job of imperial explorers is not to locate landforms, but to produce a discursive space. “The early travellers,” as Paul Carter notes of Australian explorers, “invented places rather than found them” (51). Numerous analytical investigations attend to the discursive power of exploration: in Australia, Carter’s Road to Botany Bay, Simon Ryan’s Cartographic Eye, Ross Gibson’s Diminishing Paradise, and Brigid Hains’s The Ice and the Inland, to name a few, lay bare the textual strategies through which the imperial annexation of “new” spaces was legitimated and enabled. Discursive territoriality was certainly a core product of BANZARE: as this article’s opening paragraph demonstrates, one of the key missions of BANZARE was not simply to perform rituals of spatial possession, but to textualise them for popular and governmental consumption. Within ten months of the expedition’s return, Hurley’s film Southward Ho! With Mawson was touring Australia. BANZARE consisted of two separate trips to Antarctica; Southward Ho! documents the first of these, while Siege of the South documents the both the first and the second, 1930-1, mission. While there is not space here to provide a detailed textual analysis of the entire film, a focus on the “Proclamation Island moment” usefully points up some of the film’s central spatialising work. Hurley situated the Proclamation Island scene at the heart of the film; the scene was so important that Hurley wished he had been able to shoot two hours of footage of Mawson’s island performance (Ayres 194). This scene in the film opens with a long shot of the land and sea around the island; a soundtrack of howling wind not only documents the brutal conditions in which the expedition worked, but also emphasises the emptiness of Antarctican space prior to its “discovery” by Mawson: in this shot, the film visually confirms Antarctica’s status as an available terra nullius awaiting cooption into Australian understanding, and into Australian national space. The film then cuts to a close-up of Mawson raising the flag; the sound of the wind disappears as Mawson begins to read the proclamation of possession. It is as if Mawson’s proclamation of possession stills the protean chaos of unclaimed Antarctic space by inviting it into the spatial order of national territory: at this moment, Antarctica’s agency is symbolically subsumed by Mawson’s acquisitive words. As the scene ends, the camera once again pans over the surrounding sea and ice scape, visually confirming the impact of Mawson’s—and the film’s—performance: all this, the shot implies, is now made meaningful; all this is now understood, recorded, and, most importantly, all this is now ours. A textual analysis of this filmic moment might identify numerous other spatialising strategies at work: its conflation of Mawson’s and the viewer’s proprietary gazes (Ryan), its invocation of the sublime, or its legitimising conflation of the ‘purity’ of the whiteness of the landscape with the whiteness of its claimants (Dyer 21). However, the spatial productivity of this moment far exceeds the discursive. What is at times frustrating about discourse analyses of spatiality is that they too often fail to articulate representation to other, equally potent, cultural technologies of spatial production. John Wylie notes that “on the whole, accounts of early twentieth-century Antarctic exploration exhibit a particular tendency to position and interpret exploratory experience in terms of self-contained discursive ensembles” (170). Despite the undisputed power of textuality, discourse alone does not, and cannot, produce a spatial possession. “Discursive and representational practices,” as Jane Jacobs observes, “are in a mutually constitutive relationship with political and economic forces” (9); spatiality, in other words, is not simply a matter of texts. In order to understand fully the process of Antarctican spatial acquisition, it is necessary to depart from tales of exploration and ships and flags, and to focus on the less visceral spatiality of international territorial law. Or, more accurately, it is necessary to address the mutual imbrication of these two articulated spatialising “domains of practice” (Dixon). The emerging field of critical legal geography is founded on the premise that legal analyses of territoriality neglect the spatial dimension of their investigations; rather than seeing the law as a means of spatial production, they position space as a neutral, universally-legible entity which is neatly governed by the “external variable” of territorial law (Blomley 28). “In the hegemonic conception of the law,” Wesley Pue argues, “the entire world is transmuted into one vast isotropic surface” (568) upon which law acts. Nicholas Blomley asserts, however, that law is not a neutral organiser of space, but rather a cultural technology of spatial production. Territorial laws, in other words, make spaces, and don’t simply govern them. When Mawson planted the flag and read the proclamation, he was producing Antarctica as a legal space as well as a discursive one. Today’s international territorial laws derive directly from European imperialism: as European empires expanded, they required a spatial system that would protect their newly-annexed lands, and thus they developed a set of laws of territorial acquisition and possession. Undergirding these laws is the ontological premise that space is divisible into state-owned sovereign units. At international law, space can be acquired by its imperial claimants in one of three main ways: through conquest, cession (treaty), or through “the discovery of terra nullius” (see Triggs 2). Antarctica and Australia remain the globe’s only significant spaces to be transformed into possessions through the last of these methods. In the spatiality of the international law of discovery, explorers are not just government employees or symbolic representatives, but vessels of enormous legal force. According to international territorial law, sovereign title to “new” territory—land defined (by Europeans) as terra nullius, or land belonging to no one—can be established through the eyes, feet, codified ritual performances, and documents of explorers. That is, once an authorised explorer—Mawson carried documents from both the Australian Prime Minister and the British King that invested his body and his texts with the power to transform land into a possession—saw land, put his foot on it, planted a flag, read a proclamation, then documented these acts in words and maps, that land became a possession. These performative rituals and their documentation activate the legal spatiality of territorial acquisition; law here is revealed as a “bundle of practices” that produce space as a possession (Ford 202). What we witness when we attend to Mawson’s island performance, then, is not merely a discursive performance, but also the transformation of Antarctica into a legal space of possession. Similarly, the films and documents generated by the expedition are more than just a “sign system of human ambition” (Tang 190), they are evidence, valid at law, of territorial possession. They are key components of Australia’s legal currency of Antarctican spatial purchase. What is of central importance here is that Mawson’s BANZARE performance on Proclamation Island is a moment in which the dryly legal, the bluntly physical, and the densely textual clearly intersect in the creation of space as a possession. Australia did not take possession of forty-two percent of Antarctica after BANZARE by law, by exploration, or by representation alone. The Australian government built its Antarctic space with letters patent and legal documents. BANZARE produced Australia’s Antarctic possession through the physical and legal rituals of flag-planting, proclamation-reading, and exploration. BANZARE further contributed to Australia’s polar empire with maps, journals, photos and films, and cadastral lists of the region’s animals, minerals, magnetic fields, and winds. The law of “discovery of terra nullius” coalesced these spaces into a territory officially designated as Australian. It is crucial to recognise that the production of nearly half of Antarctica as Australian space was, and is not a matter of discourse, of physical performance, or of law alone. Rather, these three cultural technologies of spatial production are mutually imbricated; none can function without the others, nor is one reducible to an epiphenomenon of another. To focus on the discursive products of BANZARE without attending to the expedition’s legal work not only downplays the significance of Mawson’s spatialising achievement, but also blinds us to the role that law plays in the production of space. Attending to Mawson’s Proclamation Island moment points to the unique nature of Australia’s Antarctic spatiality: unlike the US, which constructs Antarctic spatiality as entirely non-sovereign; and unlike Chile, which bases its Antarctic sovereignty claim on Papal Bulls and acts of domestic colonisation, Australian Antarctic space is a spatiality of possession, founded on a bedrock of imperial exploration, representation, and law. Seventy-four years ago, the camera whirred as a man stuck a flagpole into the bleak summit rocks of a small Antarctic island: six million square kilometres of Antarctica became, and remain, Australian space. Works Cited Agnew, John, and Stuart Corbridge. Mastering Space: Hegemony, Territory and International Political Economy. London: Routledge, 1995. Ayres, Philip. Mawson: A Life. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 1999. Blomley, Nicholas. Law, Space, and the Geographies of Power. New York: Guilford, 1994. Bush, W. M. Antarctica and International Law: A Collection of Inter-State and National Documents. Vol. 2. London: Oceana, 1982. Carter, Paul. The Road to Botany Bay: An Essay in Spatial History. London: Faber, 1987. Dixon, Rob. Prosthetic Gods: Travel, Representation and Colonial Governance. Brisbane: UQP, 2001. Dodds, Klaus. Geopolitics in Antarctica: Views from the Southern Oceanic Rim. Chichester: Wiley, 1997. Dyer, Richard. White. London: Routledge, 1997. Ford, Richard. “Law’s Territory (A History of Jurisdiction).” The Legal Geographies Reader. Ed. Nicholas Blomley and Richard Ford. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. 200-17. Gibson, Ross. The Diminishing Paradise: Changing Literary Perceptions of Australia. Sydney: Sirius, 1984. Hains, Brigid. The Ice and the Inland: Mawson, Flynn, and the Myth of the Frontier. Melbourne: Melbourne UP, 2002. Imperial Conference, 1926. Summary of Proceedings. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office, 1926. Jacka, Fred, and Eleanor Jacka, eds. Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988. Jacobs, Jane. Edge of Empire: Postcolonialism and the City. London: Routledge, 1996. Pue, Wesley. “Wrestling with Law: (Geographical) Specificity versus (Legal) Abstraction.” Urban Geography 11.6 (1990): 566-85. Ryan, Simon. The Cartographic Eye: How the Explorers Saw Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996. Tang, David. “Writing on Antarctica.” Room 5 1 (2000): 185-95. Triggs, Gillian. International Law and Australian Sovereignty in Antarctica. Sydney: Legal, 1986. Wylie, John. “Earthly Poles: The Antarctic Voyages of Scott and Amundsen.” Postcolonial Geographies. Ed Alison Blunt and Cheryl McEwan. London: Continuum, 2002. 169-83. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Collis, Christy. "Australia’s Antarctic Turf" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0403/02-feature-australia.php>. APA Style Collis, C. (2004, Mar17). Australia’s Antarctic Turf. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture,7,<http://www.media-culture.org.au/0403/02-feature australia.php>

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense moment Isolated, with no before and after, But a lifetime burning in every moment… (Eliot 204) Questions of just what home might mean emerged with unfortunate biting salience during the writing of this article with the vicious attack of a student knocked to the ground by the force of a broken bottle and then kicked mercilessly in the head. If not for the ministrations of a bystander, there would have been one less person on the planet. Such disruptive and distressing incidents shake up our world – not only for the person who experiences the original event but also for those who find themselves as witnesses. Using the given incident as an exemplar, the following paper explores the concept of home in the context of ruptures and breaks for people who inhabit a blended world of the digital and the physical. To focus investigations, the Winnicottian concept of the holding environment provides a novel way of understanding home as a seamless domain of continuity which, in this instance is the worldspace spans the physico-digital divide. Sitting writing a paper about ‘home’ and the manner in which the virtual and the physical worlds are blending, I glanced up and was shocked. It is very easy to sit within the warmth and comfort of academe, especially if you have a nice toasty office in the midst of winter and to postulate about what home might be. Theories and concepts, heater, pc and comfy chair support feelings of being at home, of feeling like you have a place in the world, that you have an academic home, you have a conceptual home and, …just wait a minute… back shortly… just answering an email… and a virtual home, in which you can interact and exist in wholly other ways. The other day, however, I abandoned writing the earlier paper with the disorienting experience of seeing a student at my door, a person who tumbled in amidst a mass of scrambled sentences, bandaged bleeding hands, and a bruised head-kicked face. An overseas student who should have been knocking on my door to tell me that ‘Hey, I’ve finished my exams’ instead arrived to ask for my advice: ‘Someone attacked me the other night and I don’t know what to do.’ Home, at least the home about which I wrote before the shock of meeting a traumatised student, was a concept and reality that had transformed markedly over the last quarter of the twentieth century. It was a concept that in its shifts revealed a parallel between the setting up of share housing and the emergence of virtual/physical world blending. Home, as I construed it was about the move, by people aged up to thirties, who were frequently moving from family homes towards blended environments in which share housing became specific non-related familial space (McNamara & Connell), a space/place replicated by social networking in the domain of the digital. There it was. Leaning on the work of theorists such as Miriam Meyerhoff in relation to communities of practice in a linguistic sense, to the earlier work of Lesley Milroy in relation to social networks, I was set to make an argument that the textual world of the internet and other digital domains was developing in a manner that replicated linguistic – specifically spoken – communities of practice based on speech patterns. Buoyed by the recent discovery of the more recent writing of Line Dubé, Anne Bourhis and Réal Jacob in relation to virtual communities of practice, I was certain that my propositions regarding textual practices had something to offer to the current edition of this journal. Further, my argument would proceed in such a way as to infer that the textual base played out in digital media was advancing into the domain of speech in the physical world to the extent that it was possible to determine who had an active digital life – especially in relation to domains on the net – merely by their vocabulary and their sentence construction. My proposition was that the digital domain had not only blended with the virtual in the manner that Dubé, Bourhis and Jacob suggested, but that textual communication was now a home base for the development of the English language for a broad section of the general populace in English speaking countries. The sudden jar of a physical world shock shook loose the comfortable home of text and theory and challenged what I wrote. What was home for the young student who stood before me? We had spoken of ‘home’ before, of making home in a new country, of how your housemates become your family to a certain extent, of how internet and mobile phones made it easier, how home was really with you wherever you went BUT, with the disaster that was an assault, some of that rhetoric resonated as hollow – rhetoric without substance, cold comfort, no comfort. In this situation, home is a concept tested. Perhaps only in such a context can the boundaries and meanings of home come to the fore. It is to that issue that I will address this version of the paper and for that purpose, I will advance the argument that although there may well be a modified version of home developing for a specific generation or cohort of people, that there remains a need for anchoring in the various domains of engagement. To that end, I will use the theory of psychoanalytic theorist D.W. Winnicott who constructed the concept of the holding environment (Winnicott ‘From Dependence;’ and Seinfeld). This article therefore takes its new springing point from hereon in and starts with a brief exploration of the holding environment by its originating author, reconstructs this as a contextually relevant concept, and then talks into some of the original propositions using the given incident for illustrative purposes. The holding environment as construed by D.W. Winnicott is, under optimal conditions, the first environment that an infant experiences, the warm and caring one provided by a primary caregiver who, for this article will be known as the m/other (“The Concept of the Healthy Individual” 27-28). Within this environment of literal and metaphoric holding, the infant knows nothing other than an all-encompassing domain which includes physical and psychological care, the anticipation and provision of needs, and a titrated introduction to the world of things and people (“From Dependence” 86). From the perspective of the infant and within this circle of holding, the world belongs to the infant and is composed largely of the m/other. Only when there is a break in the continuity of care does the infant notice/perceive a world that is anything other than seamless with her/his own existence. In Winnicott’s schema, if a holding environment operates in an optimal manner, it largely remains invisible (Winnicott, “From Dependence” 86; Winnicott, “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship” 52; Ogden 200). This manner of experiencing the world changes with the developing person so that in adulthood, we experience a range of environments that attend to our various needs, if we are fortunate enough. For example, your office supports your work to a greater or lesser extent and perhaps your partner supports you in a psychological sense, and your personal trainer supports your physical training needs. Other instances of support and holding could include the glasses that support your sight and the car that supports your proclivity for drives in the country and a particular lifestyle. There are therefore, many things, people, institutions, and even phenomena such as birthday celebrations that support different aspects of who we are – our being – and different aspects of our activities – our doing. This mirrors theories developed within the context of sociolinguistics in which authors parallel what people are with social networks and what people do, with communities of practice (Moore 22). In the context of Winnicott and linguistic theory, without those supports, our lives would be different and for many of us, would be diminished. The supports I describe are those I construe as holding environments and I believe that by considering a holding environment as a form of ‘home’ that we can reveal a specific way of understanding not only what a home might be, but also the manner in which it operates when people perceive it to be under threat. In the context of the digital domain, there are many media such as email, chat rooms, twitter, real time chat in a range of venues and digital social networks and virtual worlds that support different aspects of our identities, of things that we want to do, of contacts we make and maintain, and of communication for fun and for business. My initial proposition included the concept that various language forms operate to support and construct our identities and that what digital media provided were various venues for the operation of differing but overlapping holding environments in a textual sense. What do these elements, or those like them mean in the situation in which the student found himself? What does it mean and why was it that despite some time in between, that his primary quest was to seek out a person in the physical domain rather than finding solace online when, as I understood, he spent a great deal of time in digital communication? I believe that although there is a blending of domains – the digital and analogue – that when a holding environment of either variety breaks, fractures or at least reveals cracks, that it is likely that a person will seek redress in both modes and in so doing, will reaffirm what is a vital element for the healthy existence of every person – the maintenance of a sense of home – be that on or offline. Despite the seeking for redress in the mode in which the break occurred, the parallel search for social sanction and acknowledgement in the alternative domain may be just as significant for a slightly different reason. When Winnicott writes about ruptures and breaks, it is about those impingements that destroy continuity (“The Fear of Breakdown” 93) – the break in going on being. In the current context in which a person or community inhabits both the online and offline realms, part of their continuity of being, their worldspace (Hardey 2) is the seamlessness between the domains. It is therefore necessary to bring the sense of rupture/failure that occurs in one domain, across into the other to maintain the meta- holding environment or home. Home is that space where ‘you speak my language,’ whether on or offline, the holding environment is one that adapts to you, that understands your speech/text and responds in a manner predictable and in your own genre under optimal conditions, home meets you where you are and, importantly, is a space and place that when it ruptures, mends in such a way as to your restore your faith in its capacity to perform as a holding environment (“Transitional Objects” 10-11). Winnicott writes that only with an environment that was not perfect, (only with an environment that failed occasionally in a minor way), is it possible for a person to sense that there was a holding environment at all. Further, rather than a person construing this failing as a marker of lack of dependability, that the small failure revealed the significance and value of its effective functioning for most of the time. Additionally, a minor break revealed that the holding environment/home held the potential to respond to some unanticipated and distressing break by supporting the person experiencing it. By operating in this manner, there is now an imaginal space of holding/home. In a sense, this mirrors what other authors such as Thomas Lindif and Milton Shatzer write about when they describe social presence in relation to the manner in which an online arena supports or is perceived to support activities such as communication between peers. One of the most noted and public manifestations of the phenomenon of a failed holding environment becoming mended and therefore stronger was that experienced in several places in relation to terrorist attacks such as that of 2001 in the USA. In relation to the attacks on the twin towers in New York, the people of that city experienced a shattering of the integrity of their holding environment/ their home. However, they also noted – as reported across a range of media (for example: Gamble 1.iii; Grider), a huge outpouring of compassion and caring by their fellow New Yorkers thereby experiencing a certain mending and elevating of the significance of their home city holding environment (Gamble 2.vi). In the context of the aforementioned student being attacked, the break also occurred in the physical domain. Although he sought some form of reassurance online could provide some solace. However, it would leave him with the experience that the physical environment was no longer homelike, that it had failed as a holding environment. That is, home in the physical realm was, for a time, failing to support him. To effect a mending in the physical domain, it was therefore important that he seek out solutions that equally involved the physical world of people – mirroring the break – the assault by a person. What occurred when he visited my office was that he received a physical world hearing and witness to his injuries and then with the aid of colleagues, he received further care, advice and support. One of the consequences of such an experience is that although the possibility of assault is now imaginable, because it has been experienced; there is also the knowledge that assistance is at hand – a situation that may not have been known or predicted before. In some manner therefore, with other imagined ghastly events, there is now an expectation of potential assistance. That imaginal knowing therefore now forms part of his holding environment in his physical world, that form of home that ensures ontological security as mentioned by McNamara and Connell (82). Outrage over incidents in Second Life and in other domains such as myspace predominantly play out in those arenas but, like the assault of the student, also get played out in other arenas, including mainstream media. For example, an attack on the virtual headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Second Life attracted attention in newspapers and other mainstream media (Hutcheon). It seems therefore that not only is it necessary to mend the breaks in a sense within the medium in which the original break occurred but also to reassert the blended domain of the digital and the analogue and the capacity of each to form part of the meta holding environment that exists in contemporary society. There is yet to develop a discourse that links the digital and the physical worlds as constituents of a worldspace (Hardey 2), that can be viewed as a meta- holding environment/home. However, even with the few examples proffered here, it seems apparent that by investigating breaks and ruptures in the lives of people who maintain a life world that spans the digital/physical divide that it might be possible to understand the apparent merging of the two. Further, it may lead to significant observations about the newly emerging worldspace as a holding environment /home in a novel way with leads for the assisting people across the divides that may otherwise have not been considered. The implications for maintaining the seamlessness and continuity of home/holding environment in the instance of natural or person-effected disasters in either domain is the demand for an appropriate response in both. Although this already occurs, it is in an ad hoc manner without a consideration of the significance of mending ruptures and re-enlivening both domains for a sense of ontological security of the worldspace – that is at its very heart, a sense of home. References Dubé, L., A. Bourhis, and R. Jacob. “Towards a Typology of Virtual Communities of Practice.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management 1 (2006): 69-93. Eliot, T. S. “East Coker V.” Collected Poems 1909-26. London: Faber, 1974. 202-204. Gamble, Jennifer M. The Aesthetics of Mourning & the Anaesthetics of Trauma: Transformation through Memorial Space. Ph.D. thesis. The University of Sydney, 2006. Grider, Sylvia. “Spontaneous Shrines: A Modern Response to Tragedy and Disaster (Preliminary Observations Regarding the Spontaneous Shrines Following the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001)”. New Directions in Folklore 5 Oct. 2001: 1-10. 1 Dec. 2002 http://www.temple.edu/isllc/newfolk/shrines.html>. Hardey, Mariann. “Going Live: Converging Mobile Technology and the Sociability of the iGeneration.” M/C Journal 10.1 (2007). 2 July 2007 http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0703/09-hardey.php>. Hutcheon, Stephen. “Vandals ‘Bomb’ ABC Island.” Sydney Morning Herald 22 May 2007. 23 May. 2007 http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/vandals-bomb-abc-island/2007/05/22/1179601400256.html>. Lindlif, Thomas R., and Milton J. Shatzer. “Media Ethnography in Virtual Space: Strategies, Limits, and Possibilities.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 42.2 (1998): 170(20). McNamara, Sophie, and John Connell. “Homeward Bound? Searching for Home in Inner Sydney’s Share Houses.” Australian Geographer 38.1 (2007): 71-91. Meyerhoff, Miriam. “Communities of Practice.” Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Eds. J.K. Chambers, Natalie Schilling-Estes and Peter Trudgill. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 2002. 526-548. Milroy, J., and L. Milroy. “Linguistic Change, Social Network and Speaker Innovation.” Journal of Linguistics 21.2 (1985): 229-284. Moore, Emma. Learning Style and Identity: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of a Bolton High School. Unpublished PhD dissertation. Manchester, UK: University of Manchester (2003). Ogden, Thomas H. The Matrix of the Mind: Object Relations and the Psychoanalytic Dialogue. London: Maresfield Library, 1990. Seinfeld, Jeffrey. “Donald Winnicott and the Holding Relationship.” Interpreting and Holding: The Paternal and Maternal Functions of the Psychotherapist. Northvale, New Jersey & London: Jason Aronson, 1993. 101-121. Winnicott, Donald Woods. “The Concept of a Healthy Individual.” D.W. Winnicott: Home Is Where We Start From: Essays by a Psychoanalyst. Eds. Clare Winnicott, Ray Shepherd, and Madeleine Davis. New York: Penguin, 1975 (A talk given to the Royal Medico-Psychological Association, Psychotherapy and Social Psychiatry Section, 8 March 1967). 21-39. ———. “The Fear of Breakdown.” D. W. Winnicott: Psycho-Analytic Explorations. Eds. Clare Winnicott, Ray Shepherd and Madeleine Davis. Vol. 1. London: Karnac Books, 1989 (paper originally written c. 1963). 87-96. ———. “From Dependence towards Independence in the Development of the Individual.” The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Karnac Books, 2002 (Paper first presented in 1963). 83-92. ———. “The Theory of the Parent-Infant Relationship.” The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment. London: Karnac Books, 2002 (Paper first presented in 1960). 37-55. ———. “Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena.” Playing and Reality. London: Brunner-Routledge, 1971/2001. 1-30. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Gamble, Jennifer M. "Holding Environment as Home: Maintaining a Seamless Blend across the Virtual/Physical Divide." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/11-gamble.php>. APA Style Gamble, J. (Aug. 2007) "Holding Environment as Home: Maintaining a Seamless Blend across the Virtual/Physical Divide," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/11-gamble.php>.

In my article, "A New Sound; a New Sensation: A Cultural and Literary Reconsideration of the Motorcar in Modernity" (Ryder), I propose that "a range of semiotic engines" may be mobilised "to argue that, in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the motorcar is received as relatum profundis of freedom". In that 2019 article I further argue that, as Roland Barthes has indirectly proposed, the automobile fits into a "highway code" and into a broader "car system" in which its attributes—including its architectural details—are received as signs of liberation (Barthes Elements, 10, 29). While extending that argument, with near exclusive focus on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and with special reference to the hero’s Rolls Royce, I argue here that the automobile is offered as a sign of both conquest and destruction; as both dream machine and vehicle of nightmare. This is not to suggest that the motorcar was, prior to 1925, seen in absolutely idealistic terms. Nor is it to suggest that by the end of the first quarter of the twentieth century the automobile had been unequivocally condemned. As observed in my 2019 article for the Southern Semiotic Review, while The Wind in the Willows (1908) is the first novel written in English to deal with the deleterious effects of the motorcar, "it is [nonetheless] impossible to find a literary text from the early part of the twentieth century that flatly condemns the machine". So, from Gatsby’s emblematic "circus wagon" to narrator Nick Carraway’s equally symbolic "Dodge", I argue that the motorcar is represented by Fitzgerald as an emblem of both dreams and wreckage.The first motorcar noted in The Great Gatsby is the "old Dodge" belonging to Nick Carraway—the novel’s narrator and greatest dodger (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 17). Dreaming of success, and having declared himself restless, Nick claims to have come East to try his luck in the bond business (16). But, reflecting a propensity to dishonesty, the unreliable narrator (Abrams, 168) eventually reveals that at least one of the reasons for his migration East is to escape his emotional responsibilities to a girl "out West" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 30); a girl to whom he continues to write letters signed "Love, Nick" (61). While these notions of being dodgy and dodging—and their connection to Carraway’s car—seem to have escaped the attention of commentators, several have nonetheless observed that the make suits its owner for another reason: a work-a-day mass-produced machine, the vehicle is surely a sign of the narrator’s conservatism. Tad Burness, for instance, notes that in the early twentieth century the Dodge was a make that particularly appealed to conservative and careful drivers (91). Certainly, the Dodge brothers’ advertising of the nineteen-twenties, which steadfastly emphasised staunchness and stability, reinforces this conclusion. The make, therefore, is entirely appropriate to Nick: a man who evades the vicissitudes of romance; who shuns excitement, who aligns himself with mainstream Midwestern values, who identifies more with the mechanical than with the human, and who, until the very end, fails to commit to the extraordinary. Apropos, in reviewing the manuscript of Gatsby, Keath Fraser records an exchange between Jordan Baker and Nick Carraway that was finally, and perhaps unfortunately, excised: "You appeal to me,” she said suddenly as we strolled away.“You’re sort of slow and steady ... you’ve got everything adjusted just right.” (Qtd. in Bloom, 67)To have been included at the end of the third chapter, Jordan’s assessment of Nick suggests that the narrator has over-tuned the cognitive machinery necessary to navigation through a social milieu to which he does not belong. While Fitzgerald may have felt this to be too blunt a narrative tool, the ‘slow and steady’ approach to life attributed to Nick in the finished novel clearly suggests that the narrator lives life by the manual.It may be argued, then, that while ostensibly facilitating a new start and an associated desire for upward social mobility, Nick’s old Dodge symbolises a perfunctory approach to the business of living, a shabby escape from a "tangle back home", and an escape from self (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 61). Certainly, it represents no "on the road" conquest. Indeed, Nick’s clinical and mechanical approach to life comes close to ruining him. Short of his identification with Gatsby at the end—and the subsequent telling of a tragic tale—Nick is an archetypal loser. While claiming to identify with the "racy, adventurous" feel of New York (59), his instinct is to fall back on "interior rules that act as brakes on [his] desires" (61). He therefore fails to connect with Jordan Baker—his racy and attractive would-be lover, herself named after the Jordan Playboy automobile: the "first car to be marketed on emotional appeal alone" (Heimann and Patton, 14). So, it turns out that Nick is one of life’s "rotten drivers" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 60)—an accusation he ironically levels at Jordan Baker who eventually tackles him on this point:"You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person." (154)As Fraser has pointed out, the mechanical and shifty Nick is far from honest (Bloom, 68). Rather than achieving any sort of emotional consummation, his already muted desires idle, misfire, or stall. Declaring himself to be "one of the few honest people that [he has] ever known" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 154), Nick’s self-deception is, from the outset, complete. Left without the stimulus of the hero, one wonders if perhaps Nick might become a George B. Wilson.Despite his dream of pecuniary success (something shared with Nick Carraway), garage proprietor George B. Wilson is impoverished by the automobile. A dissolute dealer in second-hand machines, this once-handsome but "spiritless man" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 33) has worked for years on scant margins. James Flink notes that dealers in used automobiles had a particularly hard time in the mid to late 1920s when profits on sales were very slight (144). The fact that Wilson is a second-hand car dealer also reinforces that everything else in his life is second-hand: built on the enterprise of others, his dream is second hand; his premises are second-hand; even his wife is second-hand. And, of course, he himself is used. Fitzgerald, then, is at pains to highlight the cultural meaning of the common or inferior car. Indeed, in the dark recesses of Wilson’s garage—which itself rests precariously on the edge of a wasteland under the faded and failed eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg—sits a "dust-covered wreck of a Ford" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 33). Emblematic of the garage proprietor’s broken dreams, Wilson’s psychic paralysis is variously foregrounded—principally by the broken car. Here we have nothing less than Heidegger’s das Gestell: the mechanised consciousness as discussed in his essay "The Question Concerning Technology" (in Krell, 227). Significantly, only automobiles elicit a spark of interest from Wilson—but the irony, as suggested above, is that these are signs of the technical spirit to which he has so utterly acquiesced.It is often, if not always, the case in Gatsby that automobiles signpost derailed agency and, therefore, broken dreams. After all, Gatsby’s own death and funeral are foreshadowed through the automobile. In the first chapter, for example, Nick tells his cousin Daisy that "all the cars in Chicago have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath" for her (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 22). More portentously, during Nick and Gatsby’s drive to Astoria, "a dead man" passes the hero’s Rolls-Royce "in a hearse heaped with blooms" (68). While Myrtle’s death and Gatsby’s murder are contemporaneously suggested, in this emblematic tableau Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce is also overtaken by a limousine—and so the final chapter’s depressing "procession of three cars" is subtly anticipated (153). A "horribly black and wet" motor hearse bears Gatsby’s corpse to the cemetery while the narrator arrives with Gatsby’s father and the minister in a limousine. Then come the servants and the postman in Gatsby’s yellow station wagon. That the yellow and black cars are so incongruously and so tragically juxtaposed is a structurally and semantically significant feature of the text. The yellow car that once bore cheerful guests to Gatsby’s parties now follows the black hearse—the novel’s ultimate and, arguably, most awful death car. Thus, Fitzgerald presents us with one last reminder that, corrupted by our materialistic drives, our dreams wither and die; that there is, in the end, no magic.As Robert Long points out, however, the manuscript of Gatsby confirms that Fitzgerald had originally intended such foreshadowing to be much more obvious. For instance, in the manuscript, when Gatsby drives Nick to New York he declares his car to be "the handsomest in New York" and that he "wouldn’t want to ride around in a big hearse like some of those fellas do" (Long, 193). Further confirmation of Fitzgerald’s determination to mute the novel’s funereal symbolism is provided in chapter two when, along with the word "sepulchrally", the phrase "reeks of death" is crossed out (Long, 194). As published, then, the automobile travels much more subtly in The Great Gatsby. While a ghostly machine turns up to the hero’s house shortly after the funeral, the end of the road for Nick is suggested when he sells his plain old Dodge to a plain old grocer (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 157-158).The counterpoint to Nick’s old Dodge is, of course, Gatsby’s magnificent Rolls Royce: literature’s ultimate dream car. C.S. Rolls knew very well that his automobile was the new haute couture of the privileged. In his famous article on motorcars in the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, he declares the upmarket machine to be "the private carriage of the wealthier classes to be used on all occasions" (223). To set it apart from competitors, the Rolls Royce not only offered an extraordinarily robust and responsive chassis, but boasted bodywork hand-crafted by a range of highly skilled artisans. W.A. Robotham writes that "one of the more fascinating aspects of Rolls-Royce car production in the twenties was the manufacture of the body at the many coachbuilding establishments that existed in London, the provinces, and Paris" (14). Once an order for a chassis was placed, an appointed carrossier would prescribe and detail coachwork and agonise over every internal appointment. With its "interior of glittering plate glass and rich morocco", the unnamed machine that so hopelessly besots the Toad in the third chapter of The Wind in the Willows is undoubtedly the result of such a special order—and seems likely to have goaded Fitzgerald into a fit of imitation (Grahame, 30). Apposite to a novel that contrasts dream and reality and pertinent to the near nonchalant agency of its wraithlike, almost ethereal, hero, Gatsby’s car is a cream-yellow Rolls Royce: a Silver Ghost. When C.S. Rolls conceived the model, he wrote: "the motion of the car must be absolutely silent. The car must be free from the objectionable rattling and buzzing and inconvenience of chains. ... The engine must be smokeless and odourless" (Robson, 27). Reflecting its whisper-quiet locomotion and its extensive use of silver, nickel, and aluminium plating, Rolls’s partner Claude Johnson gave the model its perfect name. Manufactured between 1906 and 1925, the Silver Ghost was the automobile of choice for F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. In 1922, the year in which Gatsby is set, Scott and his wife Zelda owned a second-hand Silver Ghost which they drove, with much joy, between Great Neck and New York. Here, then, lies one of those rare and fortuitous connections between one’s personal drives and one’s work; really, the hero of Fitzgerald’s third novel could have no other motorcar.Like the machine he drives, and in keeping with Roland Barthes’ idea that automobiles are somehow "magical" (Mythologies, 88), Gatsby would appear to have arrived from the heavens. Ghost-like, he glides in and out of the narrative and is, moreover, ineluctably associated with silver. He has pursued silver for much of his life and is, on numerous occasions, specifically identified with this powerful symbol of privilege and betrayal. While Nick finds him "regarding the silver pepper of the stars" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 31), later the "pale", wraithlike hero wears a "silver shirt" (80). So much the object of Gatsby’s yearnings, along with Jordan Baker, Daisy Buchanan is likened to a "silver idol" (105), has a "voice full of money", and wears a hat of "metallic cloth" (109). A trophy held in hopeless memory, Daisy may be said to be one of an extensive collection of enchanted objects beheld and worshipped by an all-too-flawed hero—but while Fitzgerald’s numerous references to silver undoubtedly highlight a double-edged significance, it is nonetheless suggestions of glamour that first strike us. Early in the novel, then, aside from the portentous foreshadowing of disasters to come, Gatsby’s car emerges as a powerful archetype: an image coupled with enormous emotive significance (Jung, 87); a sign of uncompromised and near-miraculous opulence. Terraced with windshields and sporting a green leather interior, his magnificent cream-yellow Rolls Royce is "bright with nickel" (a very expensive plating used for Rolls Royce radiators) and is "swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper boxes and tool boxes" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 64). Fitzgerald’s parataxis here seems to encourage breathless awe at the near obscene luxury of the vehicle, yet the depiction is historically accurate.In an Autocar article of 1921 there appears a closely-annotated plan of a two-seater Rolls Royce. Numerous fittings are noted: food lockers, tool cupboards, hot-and-cold water-locker, wash-basin compartment, spares cupboard, kodak photography compartment, cooking utensil compartment, suit and dressing cases, spare accumulator compartment, and recess for spare petroleum tins (Garnier and Allport, 50). Like Toad’s, Gatsby’s chimerical car is undoubtedly the creation of a carrossier. Its standard of appointment, moreover, suggests royal status. Since the Rolls-Royce is an English car, its presence in America, where it was manufactured under licence for a time, also points to a desire to recapture something left behind. This, as all readers of Fitzgerald will know, is a major thematic thread in Gatsby. To be explored in a forthcoming article, the relationship between this theme of "backing up" (that is, recapturing the past) and representations of the motorcar in the novel is profound, but for the moment I focus on the Silver Ghost as a sign of Gatsby’s outrageous aristocratic pretensions. Perhaps an expression of Fitzgerald’s own fantasy that he wasn’t the son of his parents at all, but the child of a world-ruling king, Gatsby claims to have lived "like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 65). If not actually a Rolls-Royce-loving rajah, Gatsby certainly lives like a king and even signs himself "in a majestic hand" (47). Indeed, in these senses and more, the hero is "circus master" and performer par excellence.As a letter from Fitzgerald to Maxwell Perkins tells us, Petronius’s Satyrica furnished one of several alternative titles for Gatsby (Fitzgerald Letters, 169). Pointing to a delight in comedic hedonism, "Trimalchio in West Egg" was one of several titular options entertained by Fitzgerald (Gatsby is actually referred to as Trimalchio at the start of the novel’s seventh chapter) and so it is fitting that Brian Way declares Gatsby’s Rolls Royce to be "not so much a means of transport as a theatrical gesture"—one commensurate with the hero’s "non-stop theatrical performance" (Way in Bloom, 102). Similarly, in their 2019 article "Comfortably Cocooned: Onboard Media and Sydney’s Ongoing Gridlock", Richardson and Ryder argue that the automobile is far greater than the sum of its collective parts. In a similar vein, Leo Marx writes that Gatsby has about him a "gratifying sense of a dream about to be consummated" and argues that the hero’s dream car is one of many objects in the novel that speak to Gatsby’s attempt to locate, in the real world, the stuff of unutterable visions (Marx, 77). As "circus wagon" (Fitzgerald Great Gatsby, 109), the machine also makes a substantial contribution to Fitzgerald’s comedy of the excess: cars driven by clowns at circuses stereotypically seem to operate according to a set of physical laws distinct from those governing the real world. However, with its "fenders spread like wings" (67), the hero’s car seems destined to fly. But, like Daisy’s white roadster, a machine that ironically bespeaks innocence and purity while sitting portentously "under … dripping bare lilac-trees" (81), Gatsby’s machine—one of the most heavenly automobiles in literature—is also literature’s most famous death car. While, in the end, the make of the killing machine is not spelled out for us, we may nonetheless be sure that it is Gatsby’s ever-so-aptly owned Silver Ghost. After the dreadful accident in the seventh chapter, the fender of the hero’s carefully hidden open car is in need of repair. That the death car is an open one is highlighted for us before the accident, when Gatsby feels the pleated leather seats of the machine that will mow Myrtle down. The point is reinforced in chapter eight, after the accident, when Gatsby orders that his open car not be taken out. Moreover, while automobile upholstery specification varied in the nineteen-twenties, open cars generally had pleated leather seat cushions while mohair or broadcloth featured in closed tourers. This, too, narrows down the options confronting readers. Finally, the focus on the Rolls Royce’s great fenders (these are referred to at least three times before Myrtle is killed) also establishes a clear connection between the calamity and Gatsby’s "winged" Rolls. And, finally, there is the crucial matter of the ambiguous paintwork.Nick tells us that Gatsby’s Rolls-Royce is a "rich cream colour" (64) while Mavro Michaelis claims that the death car is "light green" (123). Another witness to the accident claims that the vehicle involved is "a yellow car"; "a big yellow car" (125). In fact, they are all right. Like Gatsby himself, his motorcar suggests one thing at one time and another at another. From about the mid-nineteen-tens, Rolls-Royce painted a good many Silver Ghosts a rather uncertain cream-yellow and, in fading light, the lacquer betrays a greenish hue. We remember that the party drives "towards death through the cooling twilight" (122); that Myrtle runs out "into the dusk"; and that the death car comes "out of gathering darkness" (123). While an earlier 1914 model, there is an excellent example of this ambiguous colour used on a Silver Ghost in Turin’s Museo dell’automobile. Finally, of course, the many references to ‘ghosts’ and to ‘silver’ connected with both the hero and Daisy Buchanan cannot be considered accidental. In one of modern literature’s greatest novels, then, behind the dream of the automobile falls the depressingly foul dust of betrayal and death.ReferencesAbrams, Meyer H. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1957/1993.Barthes, Roland. Elements of Semiology. Trans. A. Lavers. NY: Hill and Wang, 1964/1977.———. Mythologies. Trans. A. Lavers. NY: Hill & Wang, 1957/1974.Bloom, Harold, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: Modern Critical Interpretations. NY: Chelsea House, 1986.Burness, Tad. Cars of the Early Twenties. NY: Galahad, 1968.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London: The Folio Society, 1926/1968.———. The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ed. A. Turnbull. London: The Bodley Head, 1964.Flink, James. The Car Culture. Mass.: MIT Press, 1975.Garnier, Peter, and Warren Allport. Rolls Royce: From the Archives of Autocar. London: Hamlyn, 1978.Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. NY: Methuen, 1908/1980.Heimann, Jim, and Phil Patton. 20th Century Classic Cars. Köln: Taschen, 2009/2015.Jung, Carl G. Man and His Symbols. NY: Dell, 1964/1984.Krell, David, ed. Heidegger: Basic Writings. London: Routledge, 2011.Long, Robert E. The Achieving of The Great Gatsby. London: Bucknell UP., 1979.Marx, Leo. "The Puzzle of Anti-Urbanism in Classic American Literature." Literature & Urban Experience: Essays on the City and Literature. Eds. M.C. Jaye and A.C. Watts. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1981.Richardson, Nicholas, and Paul Ryder. "Comfortably Cocooned: Onboard Media and Sydney’s Ongoing Gridlock." Global Media Journal (Australian Edition) 13.1 (2019). 1 Mar. 2020 <https://www.hca.westernsydney.edu.au/gmjau/?p=3302>.Robotham, W. Arthur. Silver Ghosts & Silver Dawn. London: Constable & Co., 1970.Robson, Graham. Man and the Automobile. Maidenhead: McGraw Hill, 1979.Rolls, Charles S. In Encyclopaedia Britannica. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911.Ryder, Paul. "A New Sound; A New Sensation: A Cultural and Literary Reconsideration of the Motorcar in Modernity." Southern Semiotic Review 11 (2019). 1 Mar. 2020 <http://www.southernsemioticreview.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Ryder_Issue-11_1_-2019-SSR.pdf>.

A politician’s political and personal selves have been in the spotlight of academic scholarship for hundreds of years, but only in recent years has a political ‘persona’ obtained new modes of mediation via networked media. New advancements in politics, technology, and media brought challenges to the traditional politics and personal self-representation of major leaders. Vladimir Putin’s divorce announcement in June 2013, posed a new challenge for his political self-mediation. A rather reserved leader (Loshak), he nonetheless broadcast his personal news to the large audience and made it in a very peculiar way, causing the media professionals and public to draw parallels with Soviet-era mediated politics and thereby evoke collective memories. This paper studies how Vladimir Putin’s divorce announcement was constructed and presented and also what response and opinion threads—satirical and humorous, ignorant and informed feedback—it achieved via media professionals and the general Twitter audience. Finally, this study aims to evaluate how Vladimir Putin’s political ‘persona’ was represented and perceived via these mixed channels of communication.According to classic studies of mediated political persona (Braudy; Meyrowitz; Corner), any public activity of a political persona is considered a part of their political performance. The history of political marketing can be traced back to ancient times, but it developed through the works of Renaissance and Medieval thinkers. Of particular prominence is Machiavelli’s The Prince with its famous “It is unnecessary for the prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them” (cited in Corner 68). All those centuries-built developments and patterns of political self-representation have now taken on new forms as a result of the development of media industry and technology. Russian mediated politics has seen various examples of new ways of self-representation exercised by major politicians in the 2010s. For instance, former president Dmitry Medvedev was known as the “president with an iPad” (Pronina), as he was advocating technology and using social networks in order to seem more approachable and appear to be responsive to collecting feedback from the nation. Traditional media constantly highlighted Medvedev’s keen interest in Facebook and Twitter, which resulted in a growing public assumption that this new modern approach to self-representation may signify a new approach to governance (see Asmolov).Goffman’s classic study of the distinction between public and private life helps in linking political persona to celebrity persona. In his view the political presentation of self differs from the one in popular culture because politicians as opposed to entertainers have to conform to a set of ideals, projections, social stereotypes and cultural/national archetypes for their audience of voters (Goffman; Corner). A politician’s public persona has to be constantly reaffirming and proving the values he or she is promoting through their campaigns. Mediations of a political personhood can be projected in three main modes: visual, vocal, and kinetic (Ong; Mayhew; Corner). Visual representation follows the iconic paintings and photography in displaying the position, attitude, and associative contexts related to that. Vocal representation covers both content and format of a political speech, it is not only the articulated message, but also more important the persona speaking. Ong describes this close relation of the political and personal along with the interrelation of the message and the medium as “secondary orality”—voice, tone and volume make the difference. The third mode is kinetic representation and means the political persona in action and interaction. Overlapping of different strategies and structures of political self-representation fortifies the notion of performativity (Corner and Pels) in politics that becomes a core feature of the multidimensional representation of a mediated political self.The advancement of electronic media and interactive platforms has influenced political communication and set the new standard for the convergence of the political and personal life of a politician. On its own, the President Clinton/Monica Lewinsky affair raised the level of public awareness of the politician’s private life. It also allowed for widely distributed, contested, and mediated judgments of a politician’s personal actions. Lawrence and Bennett in their study of Lewinsky case’s academic and public response state that although the majority of American citizens did not expect the president to be the moral leader, they expressed ambivalence in their rendition of the importance of “moral leadership” by big politicians (438). The President Clinton/Lewinsky case adds a new dimension to Goffman and Corner’s respective discussions on the significance of values in the political persona self-representation. This case proves that values can not only be reinforced by one’s public persona, but those values can be (re)constructed by the press or public opinion. Values are becoming a contested trait in the contemporary mediated political persona. This view can be supported by Dmitry Medvedev’s case: although modern technology was known as his personal passion, it was publicised only with reference to his role as a public politician and specifically when Medvedev appeared with an iPad talking about modernisation at major meetings (Pronina). However, one can argue that one’s charisma can affect the impact of values in public self-representation of the politician. In addition, social networks add a new dimension to personified publicity. From Barack Obama’s ‘Yes We Can’ networked campaign in 2008 and through many more recent examples, we are witnessing the continuing process of the personalisation of politics (Corner and Pels). From one point of view, audiences tend to have more interest and sympathy in political individuals and their lifestyles rather than political parties and their programmes (Lawrence and Bennett; Corner and Pels). It should be noted that the interest towards political individuals does not fall apart from the historical logics of politics; it is only mediated in a new way. Max Weber’s notion of “leadership democracy” proves that political strategy is best distributed through the charismatic leadership imposing his will on the audience. This view can be strengthened by Le Bon’s concept of emotive connection of the leader and his crowd, and Adorno’s writings on the authoritarian personality also highlight the significance of the leader’s own natural and mediated persona in politics. What is new is the channels of mediation—modern audiences’ access to a politician’s private life is facilitated by new forms of media interactivity (Corner and Pels). This recent development calls for the new understanding of “persona” in politics. On one hand, the borderline between private and public becomes blurred and we are more exposed to the private self of a leader, but on the other hand, those politicians aware of new media literacy can create new structures of proximity and distance and construct a separate “persona” online, using digital media for their benefit (Corner and Pels). Russian official politics has developed a cautious attitude towards social networks in the post-Medvedev era - currently, President Vladimir Putin is not known for using social networks personally and transmits his views via his spokesperson. However, his personal charisma makes him overly present in digital media - through the images and texts shared both by his supporters and rivals. As opposed to Medvedev’s widely publicised “modernisation president” representation, Putin’s persona breaks the boundaries of limited traditional publicity and makes him recognised not only for his political activity, but looks, controversial expression, attitude to employees, and even personal life. That brings us back to Goffman, Corner and Lawrence and Bennett’s discussions on the interrelation of political values and personal traits in one’s political self-representation, making it evident that one’s strong personality can dominate over his political image and programme. Moreover, an assumption can be made that a politician’s persona may be more powerful than the narrative suggested by the constructed self-representation and new connotations may arise on the crossroads of this interaction.Russian President Divorce Announcement and Collective MemoryVladimir Putin’s divorce announcement was broadcast via traditional media on 6 June 2013 as a simple news story. The state broadcasting company Vesti-24 sent a journalist Polina Yermolayeva from their news bulletin to cover Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Putin’s visit to a ballet production, Esmeralda, at the state Kremlin theatre. The news anchor’s introduction to the interview was ordinarily written and had no hints of the upcoming sensation. After the first couple and the journalist had discussed their opinion of the ballet (“beautiful music,” “flawless and light moves”), the reporter Yermolayeva suddenly asked: “You and Lyudmila are rarely seen together in public. Rumour has it that you do not live together. It is true?” Vladimir Putin and his wife exchanged a number of rather pre-scripted speeches stating that the first couple was getting a divorce as the children had grown old enough, and they would still stay friends and wished each other the best of luck. The whole interview lasted 3:25 minutes and became a big surprise for the country (Loshak; Sobchak).When applying the classification of three modes of political personhood (Corner; Ong) to Vladimir Putin’s divorce announcement, it becomes evident that all three modes—visual, vocal, and kinetic—were used. Television audiences watched their president speak freely to the unknown reporter, explain details of his life in his own words so that body language also was visible and conveyed additional information. The visual self-representation harkens back to classic, Soviet-style announcements: Vladimir Putin and Lyudmila Putina are dressed in classic monochrome suit and costume with a skirt respectively. They pose in front of the rather dull yet somewhat golden decorations of the Kremlin Theatre Hall, the walls themselves reflecting the glory and fanfare of the Soviet leadership and architecture. Vladimir Putin and his wife both talk calmly while Lyudmila appears even more relaxed than her husband (Sobchak). Although the speech looks prepared in advance (Loshak), it uses colloquial expressions and is delivered with emotional pauses and voice changes.However, close examination of not only the message but the medium of the divorce announcement reveals a vast number of intriguing symbols and parallels. First, although living in the era of digital media, Vladimir Putin chose to broadcast his personal news through a traditional television channel. Second, it was broadcast in a news programme making the breaking news of the president’s divorce, paradoxically, quite a mundane news event. Third, the semiotic construction of the divorce announcement bore a lot of connotations and synergies to the conservative, Soviet-style information distribution patterns. There are a few key symbols here that evoke collective memories: ballet, conservative political report on the government, and the stereotype of a patriarchal couple with a submissive wife (see Loshak; Rostovskiy). For example, since the perestroika of the 1990s, ballet has been widely perceived as a symbol of big political change and cause of public anxiety (Kachkaeva): this connotation was born in the 1990s when all channels were broadcasting Swan Lake round the clock while the White House was under attack. Holden reminds us that this practice was applied many times during major crises in Soviet history, thus creating a short link in the public subconscious of a ballet broadcast being symbolic of a political crisis or turmoil.Vladimir Putin Divorce: Traditional and Social Media ReceptionIn the first day after the divorce announcement Russian Twitter generated 180,000 tweets about Vladimir Putin’s divorce, and the hashtag #развод (“divorce”) became very popular. For the analysis that follows, Putin divorce tweets were collected by two methods: retrieved from traditional media coverage of Twitter talk on Putin’s divorce and from Twitter directly, using Topsy engine. Tweets were collected for one week, from the divorce announcement on 6 June to 13 June when the discussion declined and became repetitive. Data was collected using Snob.ru, Kommersant.ru, Forbes.ru, other media outlets and Topsy. The results were then combined and evaluated.Some of those tweets provided a satirical commentary to the divorce news and can be classified as “memes.” An “Internet meme” is a contagious message, a symbolic pattern of information spread online (Lankshear and Knobel; Shifman). Memes are viral texts that are shared online after being adjusted/altered or developed on the way. Starting from 1976 when Richard Dawkins coined the term, memes have been under media scholarship scrutiny and the term has been widely contested in various sciences. In Internet research studies, memes are defined as “condensed images that stimulate visual, verbal, musical, or behavioral associations that people can easily imitate and transmit to others” (Pickerel, Jorgensen, and Bennett). The open character of memes makes them valuable tools for political discourse in a modern highly mediated environment.Qualitative analysis of the most popular and widely shared tweets reveals several strong threads and themes round Putin’s divorce discussion. According to Burzhskaya, many users created memes with jokes about the relationship between Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. For instance, “He should have tied up his relationship with Dmitry Anatolyevich long ago” or “So actually Medvedev is the case?” were among popular memes generated. Another collection of memework contained a comment that, according to the Russian legislation, Putin’s ex-wife should get half of their wealth, in this case—half of the country. This thread was followed by the discussion whether the separation/border of her share of Russia should use the Ural Mountains as the borderline. Another group of Twitter users applied the Russian president’s divorce announcement to other countries’ politics. Thus one user wrote “Take Yanukovich to the ballet” implying that Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich (who was still a legitimate president in June 2013) should also be taken to the ballet to trigger changes in the political life in Ukraine. Twitter celebrity and well-known Russian actress and comedian Tatiana Lazareva wrote “In my opinion, it is a scam”, punning on the slang meaning of the word “razvod” (“divorce”) in Russian that can also mean “fraud” or “con”. Famous Russian journalist Dmitry Olshansky used his Twitter account to draw a historical parallel between Putin and other Russian and Soviet political leaders’ marital life. He noted that such Russian leaders as Tsar Nikolay the Second and Mikhail Gorbachev who loved their wives and were known to be good husbands were not successful managers of the state. In contrast, lone rulers of Russia such as Joseph Stalin proved to be leaders who loved their country first and gained a lot of support from their electorate because of that lonely love. Popular print and online journalist Oleg Kashin picked up on that specific idea: he quoted Vladimir Putin’s press secretary who explained that the president had declared that he would now spend more time working for the prosperity of the country.Twitter users were exchanging not only 140 symbol texts but also satirical images and other visual memes based on the divorce announcement. Those who suggested that Vladimir Putin should have divorced the country instead portrayed Lyudmila Putina and Vladimir holding candles and wearing funereal black with various taglines discussing how the country would now be split. Other users contributed visual memes jamming the television show Bachelor imagery and font with Vladimir Putin’s face and an announcement that the most desirable bachelor in the country is now its president. A similar idea was put into jammed images of the Let’s Get Married television show using Vladimir Putin’s face or name linked with a humorous comment that he could try those shows to find a new wife. One more thread of Twitter memes on Putin’s divorce used the name of Alina Kabaeva, Olympic gymnast who is rumoured by the press to be in relationship with the leader (Daily Mail Reporter). She was mentioned in plenty of visual and textual memes. Probably, the most popular visual meme (Burzhskaya; Topsy) used the one-liner from a famous Soviet comedy Ivan Vasylievich Menyaet Professiyu: it uses a joyful exclamation of an actress who learns that her love interest, a movie director, is leaving his wife so that the lovers can now fly to a resort together. Alina Kabaeva, the purported love interest of Putin, was jammed to be that actress as she announced the “triumphal” resort vacation plan to a girlfriend over the phone.Vladimir Putin’s 2013 divorce announcement presented new challenges for his personal and political self-representation and revealed new traits of the Russian president’s interaction with the nation. As the news of Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin’s divorce was broadcast via traditional media in a non-interactive television format, commentary on the event advanced only through the following week’s media coverage and the massive activity on social networks. It has still to be examined whether Vladimir Putin’s political advisors intentionally included many symbols of collective memory in the original and staid broadcast announcement. However, the response from traditional and social media shows that both Russian journalists and regular Twitter users were inclined to use humour and satire when discussing the personal life of a major political leader. Despite this appearance of an active counter-political sphere via social networks, the majority of tweets retrieved also revealed a certain level of respect towards Vladimir Putin’s privacy as few popular jokes or memes were aggressive, offensive or humiliating. Most popular memes on Vladimir Putin’s divorce linked this announcement to the political life of Russia, the political situation in other countries, and television shows and popular culture. Some of the memes, though, advanced the idea that Vladimir Putin should have divorced the country instead. The analysis also shows how a charismatic leader can affect or reconstruct the “values” he represents. In Vladimir Putin’s divorce event, his personality is the main focus of discussion both by traditional and new media. However, he is not judged for his personal choices as the online social media users provide rather mild commentary and jokes about them. The event and the subsequent online discourse, images and texts not only identify how Putin’s politics have become personified, the research also uncovers how the audience/citizenry online often see the country as a “persona” as well. Some Internet users suggested Putin’s marriage to the country; this mystified, if not mythologised view reinforces Vladimir Putin’s personal and political charisma.Conclusively, Vladimir Putin’s divorce case study shows how political and private persona are being mediated and merged via mixed channels of communication. The ever-changing nature of the political leader portrayal in the mediated environment of the 2010s opens new challenges for further research on the modes and ways for political persona representation in modern Russia.References Adorno, Theodor W. The Authoritarian Personality. New York, 1969 (1950).Ankersmit, Franklin R. Aesthetic Politics: Political Philosophy beyond Fact and Value. Stanford University Press, 1996.Asmolov, Gregory. “The Kremlin’s Cameras and Virtual Potemkin Villages: ICT and the Construction of Statehood.” Bits and Atoms: Information and Communication Technology in Areas of Limited Statehood (2014): 30.Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. University of Texas Press, 1981.Braudy, Leo. The Frenzy of Renown: Fame & Its History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.Burzhskaya, Kseniya. “Galochka, Ti Seichas Umryosh!” [“Galochka, You Are Going to Die!”]. Snob.ru 7 June 2013. April 2014 ‹http://www.snob.ru/profile/9947/blog/61372›.Corner, John, and Dick Pels. “Introduction: The Re-Styling of Politics.” Media and the Restyling of Politics. Ed. John Corner and Dick Pels. London: Sage, 2003: 1-19.Corner, John. “Mediated Persona and Political Culture.” Media and the Restyling of Politics. Ed. John Corner and Dick Pels. London: Sage, 2003: 67-85.Daily Mail Reporter. “Has President Putin Married Former Olympic Gymnast? Alina Kabayeva Flashes ‘Wedding Ring’ at TV Cameras.” DailyMail.co.uk 15 Feb. 2014. April 2014 ‹http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560278/Has-President-Putin-married-former-Olympic-gymnast-Alina-Kabayeva-flashes-wedding-ring-TV-cameras.html›.Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford University Press, 2006.Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.Holden, Stephen. “Through the Looking Glass of History.” New York Times 22 Mar. 2011. April 2014 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/movies/my-perestroika-about-growing-up-in-russia-review.html?_r=0›. Kavanagh, Dennis. Election Campaigning: The New Marketing of Politics. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.Kotova, Yulia. “‘Otstoyala Vakhtu’: Vladimir I Lyudmila Putiny Ob’yavili o Razvode” [“‘Fulfilled the Duty’: Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin Announced a Divorce”]. Forbes.ru. April 2014 ‹http://www.forbes.ru/news/240295-vladimir-putin-razvelsya-s-zhenoi-lyudmiloi›.Lankshear, Colin, and Michele Knobel. “Sampling ‘the New’ in New Literacies.” A New Literacies Sampler. New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 1-24.Lawrence, Regina G., and W. Lance Bennett. “Rethinking Media Politics and Public Opinion: Reactions to the Clinton-Lewinsky Scandal.” Political Science Quarterly 116.3 (2001): 425-446.Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd. New York: Viking, 1960 (1895).Loshak, Viktor. “Vyvody Nuzhno Delat’ Iz Togo, Kak Zhivet Strana, a Ne Semya, Pust’ Dazhe Samaya Pervaya” [“You need to make conclusions on the life of the country, not of the family even though of the highest range”]. Kommersant.ru 7 June 2013. April 2014 ‹http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2206093›.Mayhew, Leon H. The New Public: Professional Communication and the Means of Social Influence. Cambridge University Press, 1997.Medvedev, Dmitry. “Interview to The Times [Russian transcript].” Government of the Russian Federation 30 July 2012. May 2014 ‹http://government.ru/docs/19842›.Meywrowitz, Joshua. No Sense of Place. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy. London: Methuen, 1982.Pickerel, Wendi, Helena Jorgensen, and Lance Bennett. "Culture Jams and Meme Warfare: Kalle Lasn, Adbusters, and Media Activism." Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, 2002.Pronina, Lyubov. “Dreams of an iPad Economy for Russia.” BloombergBusinessWeek 3 Feb. 2011. May 2014 ‹http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_07/b4215011283273.htm›.Rostovskiy, Mikhail. “Razvod Po-Prezidentski” [“Divorce President-Style”]. Mk.ru 7 June 2013. April 2014 ‹http://www.mk.ru/politics/russia/article/2013/06/07/865979-razvod-poprezidentski.html›.Shifman, Limor. “Memes in a Digital World: Reconciling with a Conceptual Troublemaker.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 18.3 (2013): 362-77.Sobchak, Kseniya. “Razvod Pod Lupoj” [“Divorce under Magnifyin Glass”]. Snob.ru 7 June 2013. April 2013 http://www.snob.ru/profile/24691/blog/61395›.Sokolov, Mikhail. “Russkiy Facebook o Razvode Chety Putinykh” [“Russian Facebook on Putin Divorce”]. Radio Svoboda 7 June 2013. May 2014 ‹http://www.svoboda.org/content/article/25009616.html›.Swanson, David L., and Paolo Mancini, eds. Politics, Media, and Modern Democracy: An International Study of Innovations in Electoral Campaigning and Their Consequences. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1996.Thompson, John B. Political Scandal. Cambridge: Polity, 2000.Vesti.ru. “Vladimir I Lyudmila Putiny: Razvod Byl Nashim Obschim Resheniem” [“Vladimir and Lyudmila Putin: Divorce Was Our Joint Decision”]. 6 June 2013. April 2014 ‹http://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=1092091›. Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Routledge, 2009.

While exploring the virtual world Second Life one day, I received a group message across the in-world communication system – “there’s a griefer on the beach. Stay away from the beach till we catch him.” There was no need to explain; everyone receiving the message knew what a griefer was and had a general idea of the kinds of things that could be happening. We’d all seen griefers at work before – someone monopolising the chat channel so no one else can communicate, people being “caged” at random, or even weapons fire causing so much “overhead” that all activity in the area slows to a crawl. These kinds of attacks are not limited to virtual worlds. Most people have experienced griefing in their everyday lives, which might best be defined as having fun at someone else’s expense. More commonly seen examples of this in the real world include teasing, bullying, and harassment; playground bullies have long made other children’s free time miserable. More destructive griefing includes arson and theft. Griefing activities happen in all kinds of games and virtual worlds. Griefers who laugh at new users and “yell” (so that all players can hear) that they stink, have followed new users of Disney’s tween-popular ToonTown. Griefers pose as friendly, helpful players who offer to show new users a path through difficult parts of a game, but then who abandon the new user in a spot where he or she does not have the skills to proceed. In World of Warcraft, a popular massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) created by Blizzard with more than seven million registered, if not active, users, griefers engage in what is known as corpse camping; they sit by a corpse, killing it over and over every time the player tries to get back into the game. The griefer gets a small number of experience points; the player being killed gets aggravated and has to wait out the griefing to play the game again (Warner & Raiter). Griefing in World of Warcraft was featured in an award nominated episode of the television program South Park, in which one character killed every other player he met. This paper considers different types of griefing, both in online games and virtual worlds, and then looks at the actions other players, those being griefed, take against griefers. A variety of examples from Second Life are considered because of the open-structure of the world and its developing nature. Definitions and Types Griefing in online environments such as video games and virtual worlds has been defined as “purposefully engaging in activities to disrupt the gaming experience of other players” (Mulligan & Patrovsky 250). The “purposeful” part of the definition means that accidental bumping and pushing, behaviours often exhibited by new users, are not griefing (Warner & Raiter). Rossingol defines a griefer as, “a player of malign intentions. They will hurt, humiliate and dishevel the average gamer through bending and breaking the rules of online games. ...They want glory, gain or just to partake in a malignant joy at the misfortune of others.” Davis, who maintains a gaming blog, describes Second Life as being populated by “those who build things and those who like to tear them down,” with the latter being the griefers who may be drawn to the unstructured anything-goes nature of the virtual world (qtd. in Girard). Definitions of griefing differ based on context. For instance, griefing has been examined in a variety of multi-player online games. These games often feature missions where players have to kill other players (PvP), behaviour that in other contexts such as virtual worlds would be considered griefing. Putting a monster on the trail of a player considered rude or unskilled might be a way to teach a lesson, but also an example of griefing (Taylor). Foo and Koivisto define griefing in MMORPGs as “play styles that disrupt another player’s gaming experience, usually with specific intention. When the act is not specifically intended to disrupt and yet the actor is the sole beneficiary, it is greed play, a subtle form of grief play” (11). Greed play usually involves actions that disrupt the game play of others but without technically breaking any game rules. A different way of looking at griefing is that it is a sign that the player understands the game or virtual world deeply enough to take advantage of ambiguities in the rules by changing the game to something new (Koster). Many games have a follow option; griefers pick a victim, stand near them, get as naked as possible, and then just follow them around without talking or explaining their actions (Walker). Another example is the memorial service in World of Warcraft for a player who died in real life. The service was interrupted by an attack from another clan; everyone at the memorial service was killed. It is not clear cut who the griefers actually were in this case – the mourners who chose to have their peaceful service in an area marked for player combat or the attackers following the rules for that area and working to earn points and progress in the game. In the case of the mourners, they were changing the rules of the game to suit them, to create something unique – a shared space to mourn a common friend. But they were definitely not playing by the rules. The attackers, considered griefers by many both in and outside of the game, did nothing that broke any rules of the game, though perhaps they broke rules of common decency (“World”); what they did does not fit into the definition of griefing, as much as do the actions of the mourners (Kotaku). Reshaping the game can be done to embed a new, sometimes political, message into the game. A group named Velvet Strike formed to protest US military action. They went into Counter Strike to bring a “message of peace, love and happiness to online shooters by any means necessary” (King). They placed spray painted graphics containing anti-war messages into the game; when confronted with people from other teams the Velvet Strike members refused to shoot (King). The group website contains “recipes” for non-violent game play. One “recipe” involved the Velvet Strike member hiding at the beginning of a mission and not moving for the rest of the game. The other players would shoot each other and then be forced to spend the rest of the game looking for the last survivor in order to get credit for the win. Similar behaviour has been tried inside the game America’s Army. Beginning March, 2006, deLappe, an artist who opposes the U.S. government’s involvement in Iraq, engaged in griefing behaviour by filling (spamming) the in-game text channel with the names of the people killed in the war; no one else can communicate on that channel. Even his character name, dead-in-Iraq, is an anti-war protest (deLappe). “I do not participate in the proscribed mayhem. Rather, I stand in position and type until I am killed. After death, I hover over my dead avatar’s body and continue to type. Upon being re-incarnated in the next round, I continue the cycle” (deLappe n.p.). What about these games and virtual worlds might lead people to even consider griefing? For one thing, they seem anonymous, which can lead to irresponsible behaviour. Players use fake names. Characters on the screen do not seem real. Another reason may be that rules can be broken in videogames and virtual worlds with few consequences, and in fact the premise of the game often seems to encourage such rule breaking. The rules are not always clearly laid out. Each game or world has a Terms of Service agreement that set out basic acceptable behaviour. Second Life defines griefing in terms of the Terms of Service that all users agree to when opening accounts. Abuse is when someone consciously and with malicious intent violates those terms. On top of that limited set of guidelines, each landowner in a virtual world such as Second Life can also set rules for their own property, from dress code, to use of weapons, to allowable conversation topics. To better understand griefing, it is necessary to consider the motivations of the people involved. Early work on categorising player types was completed by Bartle, who studied users of virtual worlds, specifically MUDs, and identified four player types: killers, achievers, socialisers, and explorers. Killers and achievers seem most relevant in a discussion about griefing. Killers enjoy using other players to get ahead. They want to do things to other people (not for or with others), and they get the most pleasure if they can act without the consent of the other player. Knowing about a game or a virtual world gives no power unless that knowledge can be used to gain some advantage over others and to enhance your standing in the game. Achievers want power and dominance in a game so they can do things to the game and master it. Griefing could help them feel a sense of power if they got people to do their will to stop the griefing behavior. Yee studied the motivations of people who play MMORPGs. He found that people who engage in griefing actually scored high in being motivated to play by both achieving and competition (“Facets”). Griefers often want attention. They may want to show off their scripting skills in the hope of earning respect among other coders and possibly be hired to program for others. But many players are motivated by a desire to compete and to win; these categories do not seem to be adequate for understanding the different types of griefing (Yee, “Faces of Grief”). The research on griefing in games has also suggested ways to categorise griefers in virtual worlds. Suler divides griefers into two types (qtd. in Becker). The first is those who grief in order to make trouble for authority figures, including the people who create the worlds. A few of the more spectacular griefing incidents seem designed to cause trouble for Linden Lab, the creators of Second Life. Groups attacked the servers that run Second Life, known as the grid, in October of 2005; this became known as the “gray goo attack” (Second Life; Wallace). Servers were flooded with objects and Second Life had to be taken off line to be restored from backups. More organised groups, such as the W-hats, the SL Liberation Army, and Patriotic Nigas engage in more large scale and public griefing. Some groups hope to draw attention to the group’s goals. The SL Liberation Army wants Linden Lab to open up the governance of the virtual world so that users can vote on changes and policies being implemented and limit corporate movement into Second Life (MarketingVox). Patriotic Nigas, with about 35 active members, want to slow the entry of corporations into Second Life (Cabron, “Who are Second Life’s”). One often discussed griefer attack in Second Life included a flood of pink flying penises directed against land owner and the first person to have made a profit of more than one million United States dollars in a virtual world, Anshe Chung, during a well-publicised and attended interview in world with technology news outlet CNET (Walsh, “Second Life Millionaire” ). The second type proposed by Suler is the griefer who wants to hurt and victimise others (qtd. in Becker). Individual players often go naked into PG-rated areas to cause trouble. Weapons are used in areas where weapons are banned. Second Life publishes a police blotter, which lists examples of minor griefing and assigned punishment, including incidents of disturbing the peace and violating community standards for which warnings and short bans have been issued. These are the actions of individuals for the most part, as were the people who exploited security holes to enter the property uninvited during the grand opening of Endemol’s Big Brother island in Second Life; guests to the opening were firebombed and caged. One of the griefers explained her involvement: Well I’m from The Netherlands, and as you might know the tv concept of big brother was invented here, and it was in all the newspapers in Holland. So I thought It would be this huge event with lots of media. Then I kinda got the idea ‘hey I could ruin this and it might make the newspaper or tv. So that’s what set me off, lol. (qtd. in Sklar) Some groups do grief just to annoy. The Patriotic Nigas claim to have attacked the John Edwards headquarters inside SL wearing Bush ‘08 buttons (Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”), but it was not a political attack. The group’s founder, Mudkips Acronym (the name of his avatar in SL) said, “I’m currently rooting for Obama, but that doesn’t mean we won’t raid him or anything. We’ll hit anyone if it’s funny, and if the guy I want to be president in 2008’s campaign provides the lulz, we’ll certainly not cross him off our list” (qtd. in Cabron, “John Edwards Attackers”). If they disrupt a high profile event or site, the attack will be covered by media that can amplify the thrill of the attack, enhance their reputation among other griefers, and add to their enjoyment of the griefing. Part of the definition of griefing is that the griefer enjoys causing other players pain and disrupting their game. One resident posted on the SL blog, “Griefers, for the most part, have no other agenda other than the thrill of sneaking one past and causing a big noise. Until a spokesperson comes forward with a manifesto, we can safely assume that this is the work of the “Jackass” generation, out to disrupt things to show that they can“ (Scarborough). Usually to have fun, griefers go after individuals, rather than the owners and administrators of the virtual world and so fit into Suler’s second type of griefing. These griefers enjoy seeing others get angry and frustrated. As one griefer said: Understanding the griefer mindset begins with this: We don’t take the game seriously at all. It continues with this: It’s fun because you react. Lastly: We do it because we’re jerks and like to laugh at you. I am the fly that kamikazes into your soup. I am the reason you can’t have nice things … . If I make you cry, you’ve made my day. (Drake) They have fun by making the other players mad. “Causing grief is the name of his game. His objective is simple: Make life hell for anyone unlucky enough to be playing with him. He’s a griefer. A griefer is a player bent on purposely frustrating others during a multiplayer game” (G4). “I’m a griefer. It’s what I do,” the griefer says. “And, man, people get so pissed off. It’s great” (G4). Taking Action against Griefers Understanding griefing from the griefer point of view leads us to examine the actions of those being griefed. Suler suggests several pairs of opposing actions that can be taken against griefers, based on his experience in an early social environment called Palace. Many of the steps still being used fit into these types. He first describes preventative versus remedial action. Preventative steps include design features to minimise griefing. The Second Life interface includes the ability to build 3D models and to create software; it also includes a menu for land owners to block those features at will, a design feature that helps prevent much griefing. Remedial actions are those taken by the administrators to deal with the effects of griefing; Linden Lab administrators can shut down whole islands to keep griefer activities from spreading to nearby islands. The second pair is interpersonal versus technical; interpersonal steps involve talking to the griefers to get them to stop ruining the game for others, while technical steps prevent griefers from re-entering the world. The elven community in Second Life strongly supports interpersonal steps; they have a category of members in their community known as guardians who receive special training in how to talk to people bent on destroying the peacefulness of the community or disturbing an event. The creators of Camp Darfur on Better World island also created a force of supporters to fend off griefer attacks after the island was destroyed twice in a week in 2006 (Kenzo). Linden Lab also makes use of technical methods; they cancel accounts so known griefers can not reenter. There were even reports that they had created a prison island where griefers whose antics were not bad enough to be totally banned would be sent via a one-way teleporter (Walsh, “Hidden Virtual World Prison”). Some users of Second Life favour technical steps; they believe that new users should be held a fixed amount of time on the Orientation island which would stop banned users from coming back into the world immediately. The third is to create tools for average users or super users (administrators); both involve software features, some of which are available to all users to help them make the game good for them while others are available only to people with administrator privileges. Average users who own land have a variety of tools available to limit griefing behaviour on their own property. In Second Life, the land owner is often blamed because he or she did not use the tools provided to landowners by Linden Lab; they can ban individual users, remove users from the land, mute their conversation, return items left on the property, and prevent people from building or running scripts. As one landowner said, “With the newbies coming in there, I’ve seen their properties just littered with crap because they don’t know protective measures you need to take as far as understanding land control and access rights” (qtd. in Girard). Super users, those who work for Linden Lab, can remove a player from the game for a various lengths of time based on their behaviour patterns. Responses to griefers can also be examined as either individual or joint actions. Individual actions include those that land owners can take against individual griefers. Individual users, regardless of account type, can file abuse reports against other individuals; Linden Lab investigates these reports and takes appropriate action. Quick and consistent reporting of all griefing, no matter how small, is advocated by most game companies and user groups as fairly successful. Strangely, some types of joint actions have been not so successful. Landowners have tried to form the Second Life Anti-Griefing Guild, but it folded because of lack of involvement. Groups providing security services have formed; many event organisers use this kind of service. (Hoffman). More successful efforts have included the creation of software, such as SLBanLink.com, Karma, and TrustNet that read lists of banned users into the banned list on all participating property. A last category of actions to be taken against griefers, and a category used by most residents of virtual worlds, is to leave them alone—to ignore them, to tolerate their actions. The thinking is that, as with many bullies in real life, griefers want attention; when deprived of that, they will move on to find other amusements. Yelling and screaming at griefers just reinforces their bad behaviour. Users simply teleport to other locations or log off. They warn others of the griefing behaviour using the various in-world communication tools so they too can stay away from the griefers. Most of the actions described above are not useful against griefers for whom a bad reputation is part of their credibility in the griefer community. The users of Second Life who staged the Gray Goo denial of service attack in October, 2005 fit into that category. They did nothing to hide the fact that they wanted to cause massive trouble; they named the self-replicating object that they created Grief Spawn and discussed ways to bring down the world on griefer forums (Wallace) Conclusion The most effective griefing usually involves an individual or small group who are only looking to have fun at someone else’s expense. It’s a small goal, and as long as there are any other users, it is easy to obtain the desired effect. In fact, as word spreads of the griefing and users feel compelled to change their behaviour to stave off future griefer attacks, the griefers have fun and achieve their goal. The key point here is that everyone has the same goal – have fun. Unfortunately, for one group – the griefers – achieving their goal precludes other users from reaching theirs. Political griefers are less successful in achieving their goals. Political creative play as griefing, like other kinds of griefing, is not particularly effective, which is another aspect of griefing as error. Other players react with frustration and violence to the actions of griefers such as deLappe and Velvet-Strike. If griefing activity makes people upset, they are less open to considering the political or economic motives of the griefers. Some complaints are relatively mild; “I’m all for creative protest and what not, but this is stupid. It’s not meaningful art or speaking out or anything of the type, its just annoying people who are never going to change their minds about how awesome they think war is” (Borkingchikapa). Others are more negative: “Somebody really needs to go find where that asshole lives and beat the shit out of him. Yeah, it’s a free country and he can legally pull this crap, but that same freedom extends to some patriot kicking the living shit out of him” (Reynolds). In this type of griefing no one’s goals for using the game are satisfied. The regular users can not have fun, but neither do they seem to be open to or accepting of the political griefer’s message. This pattern of success and failure may explain why there are so many examples of griefing to disrupt rather then the politically motivated kind. It may also suggest why efforts to curb griefing have been so ineffective in the past. Griefers who seek to disrupt for fun would see it as a personal triumph if others organised against them. Even if they found themselves banned from one area, they could quickly move somewhere else to have their fun since whom or where they harass does not really matter. Perhaps not all griefing is in error, rather, only those griefing activities motivated by any other goal than have fun. People invest their time and energy in creating their characters and developing skills. The behaviour of people in these virtual environments has a definite bearing on the real world. And perhaps that explains why people in these virtual worlds react so strongly to the behaviour. So, remember, stay off the beach until they catch the griefers, and if you want to make up the game as you go along, be ready for the other players to point at you and say “Bad, Bad Avatar.” References Bartle, Richard. “Players Who Suit MUDs.” Journal of MUD Research 1.1 (June 1996). 10 Sep. 2007 http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm>. Becker, David. Inflicting Pain on “Griefers.” 13 Dec. 2004. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.news.com/Inflicting-pain-on-griefers/2100-1043_3-5488403.html>. Borkingchikapa. Playing America’s Army. 30 May 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.metafilter.com/51938/playing-Americas-Army>. Cabron, Lou. John Edwards Attackers Unmasked. 5 Mar. 2007. 29 Apr. 2007 http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/05/john-edwards-virtual-attackers-unmasked/>. Cabron, Lou. Who Are Second Life’s “Patriotic Nigas”? 8 Mar. 2007. 30 Apr. 2007 http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/03/08/patriotic-nigras-interview-john-edwards-second-life/>. DeLappe, Joseph. Joseph deLappe. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007. http://www.unr.edu/art/DELAPPE/DeLappe%20Main%20Page/DeLappe%20Online%20MAIN.html>. Drake, Shannon. “Jerk on the Internet.” The Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 31-32. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/31>. Foo, Chek Yang. Redefining Grief Play. 2004. 10 Oct. 2007 http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:1mBYzWVqAsIJ:www.itu.dk/op/papers/ yang_foo.pdf+foo+koivisto&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=7&gl=us&client=firefox-a>. Foo, Chek Yang, and Elina Koivisto. Grief Player Motivations. 2004. 15 Aug. 2007 http://www.itu.dk/op/papers/yang_foo_koivisto.pdf>. G4. Confessions of a Griefer. N.D. 21 June 2007 http://www.g4tv.com/xplay/features/42527/Confessions_of_a_Griefer.html>. Girard, Nicole. “Griefer Madness: Terrorizing Virtual Worlds.”_ Linux Insider_ 19 Sep. 2007. 3 Oct. 2007 http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/59401.html>. Hoffman, E. C. “Tip Sheet: When Griefers Attack.” Business Week. 2007. 21 June 2007 http://www.businessweek.com/playbook/07/0416_1.htm>. Kenzo, In. “Comment: Has Plastic Duck Migrated Back to SL?” Second Life Herald Apr. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/04/has_plastic_duc.html>. King, Brad. “Make Love, Not War.” Wired June 2002. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2002/06/52894>. Koster, Raph. A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Scotsdale, AZ: Paraglyph, 2005. Kotaku. _WoW Funeral Party Gets Owned. _2006. 15 Aug. 2007 http://kotaku.com/gaming/wow/wow-funeral-party-gets-owned-167354.php>. MarketingVox. Second Life Liberation Army Targets Brands. 7. Dec. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2006/12/07/second-life-liberation-army-targets-brands/>. Mulligan, Jessica, and Bridget Patrovsky. Developing Online Games: An Insider’s Guide. Indianapolis: New Riders, 2003. Reynolds, Ren. Terra Nova: dead-in-iraq. 7 May 2006. 15 Aug. 2007 http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/05/deadiniraq_.html>. Rossingnol, Jim. “A Deadly Dollar.” The Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 23-27. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/23>. Scarborough, Solivar. Mass Spam Issue Inworld Being Investigated. 13 Oct. 2006. 20 June 2007 http://blog.secondlife.com/2006/10/13/mass-spam-issue-inworld-being-investigated/>. Sklar, Urizenus. “Big Brother Opening Hypervent Griefed for 4 Hours.” Second Life Herald 12 Dec. 2006. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/12/big_brother_ope.html>. Suler, John. The Bad Boys of Cyberspace. 1997. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www-usr.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/badboys.html>. Taylor, T.L. Play between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2006. Velvet Strike. Velvet-Strike. N.D. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/nonflame.html>. Walker, John. “How to Be a Complete Bastard.” PC Gamer 13 Mar. 2007. 10 Aug. 2007 http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=159883&site=pcg>. Wallace, Mark. “The Day the Grid Disappeared.” Escapist Magazine 15 Nov. 2005: 11. 20 June 2007 http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/19/11>. Walsh, Tony. Hidden Virtual-World Prison Revealed. 3 Jan. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/hidden_virtual_world_prison_revealed/>. Walsh, Tony. Second Life Millionaire Interview Penis-Bombed. 20 Dec. 2006. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/second_life_millionaire_interview_penis_bombed/>. Warner, Dorothy, and Mike Raiter. _Social Context in Massively-Multiplayer Online Games. _2005. 20 Aug. 2007 http://www.i-r-i-e.net/inhalt/004/Warner-Raiter.pdf>. “World of Warcraft: Funeral Ambush.” 2006. YouTube. 15 Aug. 2007 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31MVOE2ak5w>. Yee, Nicholas. Facets: 5 Motivational Factors for Why People Play MMORPG’s. 2002. 10 Oct. 2007 http://www.nickyee.com/facets/home.html>. Yee, Nicholas. Faces of Grief. 2005. June 2007 http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/000893.php?page=1>. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Gregson, Kimberly. "Bad Avatar!: Griefing in Virtual Worlds." M/C Journal 10.5 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/06-gregson.php>. APA Style Gregson, K. (Oct. 2007) "Bad Avatar!: Griefing in Virtual Worlds," M/C Journal, 10(5). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0710/06-gregson.php>.

“Language is inseparable from the world that provokes it”-- Don DeLillo, “In the Ruins of the Future”The attacks of 9/11 generated a public discourse of suspicion, with Osama bin Laden occupying the role of the quintessential “most wanted” for nearly a decade, before being captured and killed in May 2011. In the novel, Falling Man (DeLillo), set shortly after the attacks of September 11, Justin, the protagonist’s son, and his friends, the two Siblings, spend much of their time at the window of the Siblings’ New York apartment, “searching the skies for Bill Lawton” (74). Mishearing bin Laden’s name on the news, Robert, the younger of the Siblings, has “never adjusted his original sense of what he was hearing” (73), and so the “myth of Bill Lawton” (74) is created. In this paper, I draw on postclassical, cognitive narratology to “defamiliarise” processes undertaken by both narrator and reader (Palmer 28) in order to explore how narrative elements impact on readers’ and characters’ perceptions of the terrorist. My focus on select episodes within the novel “pursue[s] the author’s means of controlling his reader” (Booth i), and I refer to a generic reader to identify a certain intuitive reaction to the text. Assuming that “the written text imposes certain limits on its unwritten implications” (Iser 281), I trace a path from the uttered or printed word, through the reading act, to the process of meaning-making. I demonstrate how renaming the terrorist, and other language games, challenge the notion that terror can be synonymous with a locatable, destructible source by activating a suspicion towards the text in particular, and towards language in general.Falling Man tells the story of Keith who, after surviving the attacks on the World Trade Centre, shows up injured and disoriented at the apartment of his estranged wife, Lianne, and their son, Justin. The narrative, set at different periods between the day of the attacks and three years later, focuses on Keith’s and Lianne’s lives as they attempt to deal, in their own ways, with the trauma of the attacks and with the unexpected reunion of their small family. Keith disappears into games of poker and has a brief relationship with another survivor, while Lianne searches for answers in the writings of Alzheimer sufferers, in places of worship, and in conversations with her mother, Nina, and her mother’s partner, Martin, a German art-dealer with a questionable past. Each of the novel’s three parts also contains a short narrative from the perspective of Hammad, a fictional terrorist, starting with his early days in a European cell under the leadership of the real terrorist, Mohamed Atta, through the group’s activities in Florida, to his final moments aboard the plane that crashes into the World Trade Centre. DeLillo’s work is noted for treating language as central to society and culture (Weinstein). In this personalised narrative of post-9/11, DeLillo’s choices reflect his “refusal to reproduce the mass media’s representations of 9/11 the reader is used to” (Grossinger 85). This refusal is manifest not so much in an absence of well-known, mediated images or concepts, but in the reshaping and re-presenting of these images so that they appear unexpected, new, and personal (Apitzch). A notable example of such re-presentation is the Falling Man of the title, who is introduced, surprisingly, not as the man depicted in the famous photograph by Richard Drew (Leps), but a performance artist who uses the name Falling Man when staging his falls from various New York buildings. Not until the final two sentences of the novel does DeLillo fully admit the image into the narrative, and even then only as Keith’s private vision from the Tower: “Then he saw a shirt come down out of the sky. He walked and saw it fall, arms waving like nothing in this life” (246). The bin Laden/Bill Lawton substitution shows a similar rejection of recycled concepts and enables a renewed perspective towards the idea of bin Laden. Bill Lawton is first introduced as an anonymous “man” (17), later to be named Bill Lawton (73), and later still to be revealed as bin Laden mispronounced (73). The reader first learns of Bill Lawton in a conversation between Lianne and the Siblings’ mother, Isabel, who is worried about the children’s preoccupation at the window:“It has something to do with this man.”“What man?”“This name. You’ve heard it.”“This name,” Lianne said.“Isn’t this the name they sort of mumble back and forth? My kids totally don’t want to discuss the matter. Katie enforces the thing. She basically inspires fear in her brother. I thought maybe you would know something.”“I don’t think so.”“Like Justin says nothing about any of this?”“No. What man?”“What man? Exactly,” Isabel said. (17)If “the piling up of data [...] fulfils a function in the construction of an image” (Bal 85), a delayed unravelling of the bin Laden identity distorts this data-piling so that by the time the reader learns of the Bill Lawton/bin Laden link, an image of a man is already established as separate from, and potentially exclusive of, his historical identity. The segment beginning immediately after Isabel’s comment, “What man? Exactly” (17), refers to another, unidentified man with the pronoun “he” (18), as if to further sway the reader’s attention from the subject of that man’s identity. Fludernik notes that “language games” are a key feature of the postmodern text (Towards 221), adding that “techniques of linguistic emasculation serve implicitly to question a simple and naive view of the representational potential of language” (225). I propose that, in Falling Man, bin Laden is emasculated by the Bill Lawton misnomer, and is thereby conceptualised as two entities, one historical and one fictional. The name-switch activates what psychologists refer to as a “dual-process,” conscious and unconscious, that forms the reader’s experience of the narrative (Gerrig 37), creating a cognitive dissonance between the two. Much like Wittgenstein’s duck-rabbit drawing, bin Laden and Bill Lawton exist as two separate entities, occupying the same space of the idea of bin Laden, but demanding to be viewed singularly for the process of recognition to take place. Such distortion of a well-known figure conveys the sense that, in this novel, “all identities are either confused [...] or double [...] or merging [...] or failing” (Kauffman 371), or, occasionally, doing all these things simultaneously.A similar cognitive process is triggered by the introduction of aliases for all three characters that head each of the novel’s three parts. Ernst Hechinger is revealed as Martin Ridnour’s former, ‘terrorist’ identity (DeLillo, Falling 86), and performance artist David Janiak (180) as the Falling Man’s everyday name. But the bin Laden/Bill Lawton switch offers an overt juxtaposition of the historical with the fictional or, as Žižek would have it, “the Raw real” with the “virtual” (387), and allows the mutated bin Laden/Bill Lawton figure to shift, in the mind of the reader, between the two worlds, as well as form a new, blended entity.At this point, it is important to notice that two, interconnected, forms of suspicion exist in the novel. The first is invoked in the story-level towards various terrorist-characters such as Bill Lawton, Hammad, and Martin. The second form is activated when various elements within the narrative prompt the reader to treat the text itself as suspicious, triggering in the reader a cognitive reaction that mirrors that of the narrated character. One example is the “halting process” (Leps) that is forced on the reader when attempting to manoeuvre through the narrative’s anachronical arrangement that mirrors Keith’s mental perception of time and memory. Another such narrative device is the use of “unheralded pronouns” (Gerrig 50), when ‘he’ or ‘she’ is used ambiguously, often at the beginning of a chapter or segment. The use of pronouns in narrative must adhere to strict grammatical rules (Fludernik, Introduction) and when these rules are ignored, the reading pattern is affected. First, the reader of Falling Man is immersed within an element in the story, then becomes puzzled about the identity of a character, and finally re-reads the passage to gain clarity. The reader, after a while, distances somewhat from the text, scanning for alternative possibilities and approaching interpretation with a tentative sense of doubt.The conversation between the two mothers, the Bill Lawton/bin Laden split, and the use of unheralded pronouns also destabilises the relationship between person and name, and appears to create a world in which “personality has disintegrated into a mere semiotic mark” (Versluys 21). Keith’s obsession with correcting the spelling of his surname, Neudecker, “because it wasn’t him, with the name misspelled” (DeLillo, Falling 31), Lianne’s fondness of the philosopher Kierkegaard, “right down to the spelling of his name. The hard Scandian k’s and lovely doubled a” (118), her consideration of “Marko [...] with a k, whatever that might signify” (119), and Rumsey, who is told that “everything in his life would be different [...] if one letter in his name was different” (149), are a few examples of the text’s semiotic emphasis. But, while Versluys sees this tendency as emblematic of the novel’s portrayal of a decline in humanity, I suggest that the text’s preoccupation with the shape and constitution of words may work to “de-automatise” (Margolin 66) the relationship between sign and perception, rather than to denigrate the signified human. With the renamed terrorist, the reader comes to doubt not only the printed text, but also his or her automatic response to “bin Laden” as a “brand, a sort of logo which identifies and personalises the evil” (Chomsky, September 36). Bill Lawton, according to Justin, speaks in monosyllables (102), a language Justin chooses, for a time, for his own speech (66), and this also contributes to the de-automatisation of the text. The language game, in which a speaker must only use words with one syllable, began as a classroom activity “designed to teach the children something about the structure of words and the discipline required to frame clear thoughts” (66). The game also gives players, and readers, an embodied understanding of what Genette calls the gap between “being and saying” (93) that is inevitable in the production of language and narrative. Justin, who continues to play the game outside the classroom, because “it helps [him] go slow when [he] thinks” (66), finds comfort in the silent pauses that are afforded by widening the gap between thought and utterance. History in Falling Man is a collection of the private narratives of survivors, families, terrorists, artists, and the host of people that are affected by the attacks of 9/11. Justin’s character, with the linguistic and psychic code of a child, represents the way in which all participants, to some extent, choose their own antagonist, language, plot, and sequence to personalise this mega-public event. He insists that the towers did not collapse (72), but that they will, “this time coming” (102); Bill Lawton, for Justin, “has a long beard [...] speaks thirteen languages but not English except to his wives [and] has the power to poison what we eat” (74). Despite being confronted with the factual inaccuracies of his narrative, Justin resists editing his version precisely because these inaccuracies form his own, non-mediated, authentic account. They are, in a sense, a work of fiction and, paradoxically, more ‘real’ because of that. “We want to pass beyond the limits of safe understandings”, thinks Lianne, “and what better way to do it than through make-believe” (63). I have so far shown how narrative elements create a suspicion in the way characters operate within their surrounding universe, in the reader’s attitude towards the text, and, more implicitly, in the power of language to accurately represent a personal reality. Within the context of the novel’s historical setting—the period following the 9/11 attacks—the narration of the terrorist figure, as represented in Bill Lawton, Hammad, Martin, and others, may function as a response to the “binarism” of Bush’s proposal (Butler 2), epitomised in his “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” (Silberstein 14) approach. Within the novel’s universe, its narration of terrorist-characters works to free discourse from superficial categorisations and to provide “a counterdiscourse to the prevailing nationalistic interpretations” (Versluys 23) of the events of 9/11 by de-automatising a response to “us” and “them.” In his essay published shortly after the attacks, DeLillo notes that “the sense of disarticulation we hear in the term ‘Us and Them’ has never been so striking, at either end” (“Ruins”), and while he draws distinctions, in the same essay, with technology on ‘our’ side and religious fanaticism on ‘their’ side, I believe that the novel is less settled on the subject. The Anglicisation of bin Laden’s name, for example, suggests that Bush’s either-or-ism is, at least partially, an arbitrary linguistic construct. At a time when some social commentators have highlighted the similarity in the definitions of “terror” and “counter terror” (Chomsky, “Commentary” 610), the Bill Lawton ‘error’ works to illustrate how easily language can destabilise our perception of what is familiar/strange, us/them, terror/counter-terror, victim/perpetrator. In the renaming of the notorious terrorist, “the familiar name is transposed on the mass murderer, but in return the attributes of the mass murderer are transposed on one very like us” (Conte 570), and this reciprocal relationship forms an imagined evil that is no longer so easily locatable within the prevailing political discourse. As the novel contextualises 9/11 within a greater historical narrative (Leps), in which characters like Martin represent “our” form of militant activism (Duvall), we are invited to perceive a possibility that the terrorist could be, like Martin, “one of ours […] godless, Western, white” (DeLillo, Falling 195).Further, the idea that the suspect exists, almost literally, within ‘us’, the victims, is reflected in the structure of the narrative itself. This suggests a more fluid relationship between terrorist and victim than is offered by common categorisations that, for some, “mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality” (Said 12). Hammad is visited in three short separate sections; “on Marienstrasse” (77-83), “in Nokomis” (171-178), and “the Hudson corridor” (237-239), at the end of each of the novel’s three parts. Hammad’s narrative is segmented within Keith’s and Lianne’s tale like an invisible yet pervasive reminder that the terrorist is inseparable from the lives of the victims, habituating the same terrains, and crafted by the same omniscient powers that compose the victims’ narrative. The penetration of the terrorist into ‘our’ narrative is also perceptible in the physical osmosis between terrorist and victim, as the body of the injured victim hosts fragments of the dead terrorist’s flesh. The portrayal of the body, in some post 9/11 novels, as “a vulnerable site of trauma” (Bird, 561), is evident in the following passage, where a physician explains to Keith the post-bombing condition termed “organic shrapnel”:The bomber is blown to bits, literally bits and pieces, and fragments of flesh and bone come flying outwards with such force and velocity that they get wedged, they get trapped in the body of anyone who’s in striking range...A student is sitting in a cafe. She survives the attack. Then, months later, they find these little, like, pellets of flesh, human flesh that got driven into the skin. (16)For Keith, the dead terrorist’s flesh, lodged under living human skin, confirms the malignancy of his emotional and physical injury, and suggests a “consciousness occupied by terror” (Apitzch 95), not unlike Justin’s consciousness, occupied from within by the “secret” (DeLillo, Falling 101) of Bill Lawton.The macabre bond between terrorist and victim is fully realised in the novel’s final pages, when Hammad’s death intersects, temporally, with the beginning of Keith’s story, and the two bodies almost literally collide as Hammad’s jet crashes into Keith’s office building. Unlike Hammad’s earlier and clearly framed narratives, his final interruption dissolves into Keith’s story with such cinematic seamlessness as to make the two narratives almost indistinguishable from one another. Hammad’s perspective concludes on board the jet, as “something fell off the counter in the galley. He fastened his seatbelt” (239), followed immediately by “a bottle fell off the counter in the galley, on the other side of the aisle, and he watched it roll this way and that” (239). The ambiguous use of the pronoun “he,” once again, and the twin bottles in the galleys create a moment of confusion and force a re-reading to establish that, in fact, there are two different bottles, in two galleys; one on board the plane and the other inside the World Trade Centre. Victim and terrorist, then, share a common fate as acting agents in a single governing narrative that implicates both lives.Finally, Žižek warns that “whenever we encounter such a purely evil on the Outside, [...] we should recognise the distilled version of our own self” (387). DeLillo assimilates this proposition into the fabric of Falling Man by crafting a language that renegotiates the division between ‘out’ and ‘in,’ creating a fictional antagonist in Bill Lawton that continues to lurk outside the symbolic window long after the demise of his historical double. Some have read this novel as offering a more relative perspective on terrorism (Duvall). However, like Leps, I find that DeLillo here tries to “provoke thoughtful stillness rather than secure truths” (185), and this stillness is conveyed in a language that meditates, with the reader, on its own role in constructing precarious concepts such as ‘us’ and ‘them.’ When proposing that terror, in Falling Man, can be found within ‘us,’ linguistically, historically, and even physically, I must also add that DeLillo’s ‘us’ is an imagined sphere that stands in opposition to a ‘them’ world in which “things [are] clearly defined” (DeLillo, Falling 83). Within this sphere, where “total silence” is seen as a form of spiritual progress (101), one is reminded to approach narrative and, by implication, life, with a sense of mindful attention; “to hear”, like Keith, “what is always there” (225), and to look, as Nina does, for “something deeper than things or shapes of things” (111).ReferencesApitzch, Julia. "The Art of Terror – the Terror of Art: Delillo's Still Life of 9/11, Giorgio Morandi, Gerhard Richter, and Performance Art." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 93–110.Bal, Mieke. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narratology. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1985.Bird, Benjamin. "History, Emotion, and the Body: Mourning in Post-9/11 Fiction." Literature Compass 4.3 (2007): 561–75.Booth, Wayne C. The Rhetoric of Fiction. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1961.Butler, Judith. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. New York: Verso, 2004.Chomsky, Noam. "Commentary Moral Truisms, Empirical Evidence, and Foreign Policy." Review of International Studies 29.4 (2003): 605–20.---. September 11. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 2002.Conte, Joseph Mark. "Don Delillo’s Falling Man and the Age of Terror." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 57.3 (2011): 557–83.DeLillo, Don. Falling Man. London: Picador, 2007.---. "In the Ruins of the Future." The Guardian (22 December, 2001). ‹http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/dec/22/fiction.dondelillo›.Duvall, John N. & Marzec, Robert P. "Narrating 9/11." MFS Modern Fiction Studies 57.3 (2011): 381–400.Fludernik, Monika. An Introduction to Narratology. Taylor & Francis [EBL access record], 2009.---. Towards a 'Natural' Narratology. Routledge, [EBL access record], 1996.Genette, Gerard. Figures of Literary Discourse. New York: Columbia U P, 1982.Gerrig, Richard J. "Conscious and Unconscious Processes in Reader's Narrative Experiences." Current Trends in Narratology. Ed. Greta Olson. Berlin: De Gruyter [EBL access record], 2011. 37–60.Grossinger, Leif. "Public Image and Self-Representation: Don Delillo's Artists and Terrorists in Postmodern Mass Society." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 81–92.Iser, Wolfgang. "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach." New Literary History 3.2 (1972): 279–99.Kauffman, Linda S. "The Wake of Terror: Don Delillo's in the Ruins of the Future, Baadermeinhof, and Falling Man." Modern Fiction Studies 54.2 (2008): 353–77.Leps, Marie-Christine. "Falling Man: Performing Fiction." Terrorism, Media, and the Ethics of Fiction: Transatlantic Perspectives on Don DeLillo. Eds. Peter Schneck and Philipp Schweighauser. London: Continuum [EBL access record], 2010. 184–203.Margolin, Uri. "(Mis)Perceiving to Good Aesthetic and Cognitive Effect." Current Trends in Narratology. Ed. Greta Olson. Berlin: De Gruyter [EBL access record], 2011. 61–78.Palmer, Alan. "The Construction of Fictional Minds." Narrative 10.1 (2002): 28–46.Said, Edward W. "The Clash of Ignorance." The Nation 273.12 (2001): 11–13.Silberstein, Sandra. War of Words : Language Politics and 9/11. Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.Versluys, Kristiaan. Out of the Blue: September 11 and the Novel. New York: Columbia U P, 2009.Weinstein, Arnold. Nobody's Home: Speech, Self and Place in American Fiction from Hawthorne to DeLillo. Oxford U P [EBL Access Record], 1993.Žižek, Slavoj. "Welcome to the Desert of the Real!" The South Atlantic Quarterly 101.2 (2002): 385–89.

In his directorial debut, The Man with the Iron Fists (2012), RZA not only evokes the textual borrowing techniques he has utilised as a hip-hop producer, but also reflects the influence of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who has built a career upon acknowledging mainstream and cult film histories through mise-en-scene, editing, and deft characterisation. The Man with the Iron Fists was originally to coincide with Tarantino’s rebel slave narrative Django Unchained (2012), which Tarantino has discussed openly as commentary regarding race in contemporary America. In 2011, Variety reported that RZA had joined the cast of Tarantino’s anticipated Django Unchained, playing “Thaddeus, a violent slave working on a Mississippi plantation” (Sneider, “Rza Joins ‘Django Unchained’ Cast”). Django Unchained follows Tarantino’s pattern of generic and trope mixology, combining elements of the Western, blaxploitation, and buddy/road film. He famously stated: “[If] my work has anything it's that I'm taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together… I steal from everything. Great artists steal; they don't do homages” (“The Directors of Our Lifetime: In Their Own Words”). He sutures iconography from multiple films in numerous genres to form new texts that stand alone, albeit as amalgamations of references. In considering meanings attached particularly to exploitation films, this article addresses the significance of combining influences within The Man with the Iron Fists and Tarantino’s Django Unchained, and the ideological threads that emerge in fusing exploitation film aesthetics. Ultimately, these films provide a convergence not only of texts, but also of the collective identities associated with and built upon those texts, feats made possible through the filmmakers’ use of pastiche. Pastiche in Identity Formation as Subversive A reflection of the postmodern tendency towards appropriation and borrowing, pastiche is often considered less meaningful than its counterpart, parody. Fredric Jameson suggests that though pastiche and parody share commonalities (most notably the mimicry of style and mannerisms), they do so to different effects. Jameson asserts that parody mimics in an effort to mock the idiosyncrasies within a text, whereas pastiche is “neutral parody” of “dead styles” (114). In short, as Susan Hayward writes, “In its uninventiveness, pastiche is but a shadow of its former thing” (302). For Jameson, the most ubiquitous form of pastiche is the nostalgia film, which attempts to recapture the essence of the past. As examples, he points to the George Lucas films American Graffiti (1973), which is staged in the United States of the 1950s, and Star Wars (1977), which reflects the serials of the 1930s-1950s (114-115). Though scholars such as Jameson and Hayward are contemptuous of pastiche, a growing number see its potential for the subversion and critique that the aforementioned suggest it lacks. For instance, Sarah Smith reminds us that pastiche films engage in “complicitous critique”: the films maintain the trappings of original texts, yet do so in order to advance critique (209). For Smith and other scholars, such as Judith Butler and Richard Dyer, Jameson’s criticism of pastiche is dismissive, for while these scholars largely agree that pastiche is a form of mimicry in which the distance between original and copy is minimal, they recognise that a space still exists for it to be critical. Smith writes: “[W]hile there may be greater distance between the parody and its target text than there is between the pastiche and the text it imitates, a prescribed degree of distance is not a prerequisite for critical engagement with the ur-text” (210). In this regard, fidelity to the original texts is not only required but to be revered, for these likenesses to the original “act as a guarantee of the critique of those origins and provide an opportunity for the filmmaker to position [himself or herself] in relation to them” (Smith 211). Essentially, pastiche is a useful technique in which to construct hybrid identities. Keri E. Iyall Smith suggests that hybrid identities emerge from “a reflexive relationship between local and global” (3). According to popular music scholar Brett Lashua, hybrid identities “make and re-make culture through appropriating the cultural ‘raw materials’ of life in order to construct meaning in their own specific cultural localities. In a sense, they are ‘sampling’ from broader popular culture and reworking what they can take into their own specific local cultures” (“The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap”). As will be evidenced here, Tarantino utilises pastiche as an unabashed genre poacher; similarly, as a self-avowed Tarantino student and hip-hop producer known for his sampling acumen, RZA invokes pastiche to reflect mastery of his craft and a hybridised identity his multifaceted persona. Plagiarism, Poaching, and Pastiche: Tarantino Blurs Boundaries As a filmmaker, Tarantino is known for indulging in excess: violence, language, and aesthetics. Edward Gallafent characterised the director’s work as having a preoccupation with settings and journeys, violence (both emotional and physical), complicated chronological structures, and dissatisfying conclusions (3-4). Additionally, pieces of Tarantino’s cinematic fandom are inserted into his own films. Academic and popular critics continually note Tarantino’s rise as an obsessive video store clerk turned respected and eccentric auteur. Tarantino’s authorship lies mostly in his ability to borrow (or in his words, steal) narrative arcs, characterisations, and camera work from other filmmakers, and use them in ways that feel innovative and different from those past works. It is not that he borrows generally from movements, films, and filmmakers, but that he conscientiously lifts segments from works to incorporate into his text. In Postmodern Hollywood: What’s New in Film and Why It Makes Us Feel So Strange, Keith M. Booker contends that Tarantino’s work often straddles lines between simplistic reference for reference’s sake and meditations upon the roles of cinema (90). Booker dismisses claims for the latter, citing Tarantino’s unwillingness to contextualise the references in Pulp Fiction, such that the film is best described not an act of citation so much as a break with the historical. Tarantino’s lack of reverence provides him freedom to intermingle texts and tropes to fit his goals as a filmmaker, rather than working within the confines of generic narratives. Each film feels both apart and distinct from genre categories. Jackie Brown, for example, has many of the traits attached to blaxploitation, from its focus on drug culture, the casting of Pam Grier who gained status playing female leads in blaxploitation films, and extreme violence. Tarantino’s use of humour throughout, particular in his treatment of character types, plot twists, and self-aware musical cues distances the film from easy characterisation. It is, but isn’t. What is gained is a remediated conception of cinematic reality. The fictions created in films of the past are noted in Tarantino’s play with tropes. His mixes produce an extreme form of mediated reality – one that is full of excess, highly exaggerated, and completely composed of stolen frameworks. Tarantino continues his generic play in Django Unchained. While much of it does borrow heavily from 1960s and 1970s Western filmmakers like Leone, Corbucci, and Peckinpah (the significance of desolate landscapes, long takes, extreme violence), it also incorporates strands of buddy cop (partners with different backgrounds working together to correct wrongs), early blaxploitation (Broomhilda’s last name is von Shaft suggesting that she is an ancestor of blaxploitation icon John Shaft, the characterisation of Django as black antihero enacting revenge on white racists in power), and kung fu (revenge narrative, in addition to the extensive training moments between Dr. Schultz and Django). The familiar elements highlight the transgressions of genre adherence. The comfort of the western genre and its tropes eases the audience, only for Tarantino to incorporate those elements from outside the genre to spark interest, to shock, to remind audiences of the mediated reality onscreen. Tarantino has been criticised for his lack of depth and understanding regarding women and people of colour, despite his attempts to provide various leading and supporting roles for both. Django Unchained was particularly criticised for Tarantino’s use of the term nigger - over 100 instances in the film. Tarantino defended his decision by claiming historical accuracy, poetic license, and his desire to confront audiences with various levels of racism. Many, including Spike Lee, disagreed, arguing Tarantino had no claim to making a film about slavery. Lee stated through Twitter: “American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was A Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen From Africa. I Will Honor Them” (“Spike Lee on Django Unchained: Filmmaker Calls Movie ‘Disrespectful’”). Not only does Lee evoke the tragedy of the American slave trade and the significance of race within contemporary filmmaking, but he uses genre to underscore what he perceives is Tarantino’s lack of reverence to the issue of slavery and its aftermath in American culture. Django Unchained is both physically and emotionally brutal. The world created by Tarantino is culturally messy, as Italian composers rub elbows with black hip-hop artists, actors from films’ referenced in Django Unchained interact with new types of heroes. The amounts of references, people, and spectacles in his films have created a brand that is both hyperaware, but often critiqued as ambivalent. This is due in part to the perception of Tarantino as a filmmaker with no filter. His brand as a filmmaker is action ordered, excessive, and injected with his own fandom. He is an ultimate poacher of texts and it is this aesthetic, which has also made him a fan favourite amongst young cinephiles. Not only does he embrace the amount of play film offers, but he takes the familiar and makes it strange. The worlds he creates are hazier, darker, and unstable. Creating such a world in Django Unchained provides a lot of potential for reading race in film and American culture. He and his defenders have discussed this film as an “honest” portrayal of the effects of slavery and racial tension in the United States. This is also the world which acts as context for RZA’s The Man with the Iron Fists. Though a reference abandoned in Django Unchained, the connection between both films and both filmmakers pleasure in pastiche provide further insight to connections between film and race. Doing the Knowledge: RZA Pays Homage As a filmmaker, RZA utilises Tarantino’s filmmaking brand techniques to build his own homage and add to the body of kung-fu films. Doing so furnishes him the opportunity to rehash and reform narratives and tropes in ways that change familiar narrative structures and plot devices. In creating a film which relies on cinematic allusions to kung fu, RZA—as a fan, practitioner, and author—reconfigures kung fu from being an exploitative genre and reshapes its potential for representational empowerment. While Tarantino considers himself an unabashed thief of genre tropes, RZA envisions himself more as a student who pays homage to masters—among whom he includes Tarantino. Indeed, in an interview with MTV, RZA refers to Tarantino as his Sifu (a Chinese term for master or teacher) and credits him not only for teaching RZA about filmmaking, but also for providing him with his blessing to make his first feature length film (Downey, “RZA Recalls Learning from ‘The Master’ Quentin Tarantino”). RZA implies that mastery of one’s craft comes from incorporating influences while creating original work, not theft. For instance, he states that the Pink Blossom brothel—the locus for most of the action in the film—was inspired by the House of Blue Leaves restaurant, which functions in a similar capacity in Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (“RZA Talks Sampling of Kung Fu Films for Movie & The Difference Between Biting vs. Influence”). Hip-hop is an art form in which its practitioners “partake of a discursive universe where skill at appropriating the fragments of a rapidly-changing world with verbal grace and dexterity is constituted as knowledge” (Potter 21). This knowledge draws upon not only the contemporary moment but also the larger body of recorded music and sound, both of which it “re-reads and Signifies upon through a complex set of strategies, including samplin’, cuttin’ (pastiche), and freestylin’ (improvisation)” (Potter 22). As an artist who came of age in hip-hop’s formative years and whose formal recording career began at the latter half of hip-hop’s Golden Age (often considered 1986-1993), RZA is a particularly adept cutter and sampler – indeed, as a sampler, RZA is often considered a master. While RZA’s samples run the gamut of the musical spectrum, he is especially known for sampling obscure, often indeterminable jazz and soul tracks. Imani Perry suggests that this measure of fidelity to the past is borne out of hip-hop’s ideological respect for ancestors and its inherent sense of nostalgia (54). Hallmarks of RZA’s sampling repertoire include dialog and sound effects from equally obscure kung fu films. RZA attributes his sampling of kung fu to an affinity for these films established in his youth after viewing noteworthy examples such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) and Five Deadly Venoms (1978). These films have become a key aspect of his identity and everyday life (Gross, “RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films”). He speaks of his decision to make kung fu dialog an integral part of Wu-Tang Clan’s first album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers): “My fantasy was to make a one-hour movie that people were just going to listen to. They would hear my movie and see it in their minds. I’d read comic books like that, with sonic effects and kung fu voices in my head. That makes it more exciting so I try to create music in the same way” (Gross, ““RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films”). Much like Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) and his other musical endeavours, The Man with the Iron Fists serves as further evidence of RZA’s hybrid identity., which sociologist Keri E. Iyall Smith suggests emerges from “a reflexive relationship between local and global” (3). According to popular music scholar Brett Lashua, hybrid identities “make and re-make culture through appropriating the cultural ‘raw materials’ of life in order to construct meaning in their own specific cultural localities. In a sense, they are ‘sampling’ from broader popular culture and reworking what they can take into their own specific local cultures” (“The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap”). The most overt instance of RZA’s hybridity is in regards to names, many of which are derived from the Gordon Liu film Shaolin and Wu-Tang (1983), in which the competing martial arts schools come together to fight a common foe. The film is the basis not only for the name of RZA’s group (Wu-Tang Clan) but also for the names of individual members (for instance, Master Killer—after the series to which the film belongs) and the group’s home base of Staten Island, New York, which they frequently refer to as “Shaolin.” The Man with the Iron Fists is another extension of this hybrid identity. Kung fu has long had meaning for African Americans particularly because these films frequently “focus narratively on either the triumph of the ‘little guy’ or ‘underdog’ or the nobility of the struggle to recognise humanity and virtue in all people, or some combination of both” (Ongiri 35). As evidence, Amy Obugo Ongiri points to films such as The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, a film about a peasant who learns martial arts at the Shaolin temple in order to avenge his family’s murder by the Manchu rulers (Ongiri 35). RZA reifies this notion in a GQ interview, where he speaks about The 36th Chamber of Shaolin specifically, noting its theme of rebellion against government oppression having relevance to his life as an African American (Pappademus, “This Movie Is Rated Wu”). RZA appropriates the humble origins of the peasant San Te (Gordon Liu), the protagonist of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, in Thaddeus (whom RZA plays in the film), whose journey to saviour of Jungle Village begins with his being a slave in America. Indeed, one might argue that RZA’s construction of and role as Thaddeus is the ultimate realisation of the hybrid identity he has developed since becoming a popular recording artist. Just as Tarantino’s acting in his own films often reflects his identity as genre splicer and convention breaker (particularly since they are often self-referential), RZA’s portrayal of Thaddeus—as an African American, as a martial artist, and as a “conscious” human being—reflects the narrative RZA has constructed about his own life. Conclusion The same amount of play Tarantino has with conventions, particularly in characterisations and notions of heroism, is present in RZA’s Man with the Iron Fists. Both filmmakers poach from their favourite films and genres in order to create interpretations that feel both familiar and new. RZA follows Tarantino’s aesthetic of borrowing scenes directly from other films. Both filmmakers poach from films for their own devices, but in those mash-ups open up avenues for genre critique and identity formation. Tarantino is right to say that they are not solely homages, as homages honour the films in which they borrow. Tarantino and RZA do more through their poaching to stretch the boundaries of genres and films’ abilities to communicate with audiences. References “The Directors of Our Lifetime: In Their Own Words.” Empire Online. N.d. 8 May 2013 ‹http://www.empireonline.com/magazine/250/directors-of-our-lifetime/5.asp›. Booker, Keith M. Postmodern Hollywood: What’s New in Film and Why It Makes Us Feel So Strange. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007. Downey, Ryan J. “RZA Recalls Learning from ‘The Master’ Quentin Tarantino.” MTV. 30 August 2012. 14 July 2013 ‹http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1692872/rza-man-with-the-iron-fists-quentin-tarantino.jhtml›. Gallefent, Edward. Quentin Tarantino. London: Longman. 2005. Gross, Jason. “RZA’s Edge: The RZA’s Guide to Kung Fu Films.” Film Comment. N.d. 5 June 2013 ‹http://www.filmcomment.com/article/rzas-edge-the-rzas-guide-to-kung-fu-films›. Iyall Smith, Keri E. “Hybrid Identities: Theoretical Examinations.” Hybrid Identities: Theoretical and Empirical Examinations. Ed. Keri E. Iyall Smith and Patricia Leavy. Leiden: Brill, 2008. 3-12. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” Postmodern Culture. Ed. Hal Foster. London: Pluto, 1985. 111-125. Lashua, Brett. “The Arts of the Remix: Ethnography and Rap.” Anthropology Matters 8.2 (2006). 6 June 2013 ‹http://www.anthropologymatters.com›. “The Man with the Iron Fists – Who in the Cast Can F-U Up?” IronFistsMovie 21 Sep. 2012. YouTube. 8 May 2013 ‹http://youtu.be/bhJOQZFJfqA›. Pappademus, Alex. “This Movie Is Rated Wu.” GQ Nov. 2012. 6 June 2013 ‹http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/201211/the-rza-man-with-the-iron-fists-wu-tang-clan›. Perry, Imani. Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2004. Potter, Russell. Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism. Albany, NY: SUNY P, 1995. “RZA Talks Sampling of Kung Fu Films for Movie & The Difference between Biting vs. Influence.” The Well Versed. 2 Nov. 2012. 5 June 2013 ‹http://thewellversed.com/2012/11/02/video-rza-talks-sampling-of-kung-fu-films-for-movie-the-difference-between-biting-vs-influence/›. Smith, Sarah. “Lip and Love: Subversive Repetition in the Pastiche Films of Tracey Moffat.” Screen 49.2 (Summer 2008): 209-215. Snedier, Jeff. “Rza Joins 'Django Unchained' Cast.” Variety 2 Nov. 2011. 14 June 2013 ‹http://variety.com/2011/film/news/rza-joins-django-unchained-cast-1118045503/›. “Spike Lee on Django Unchained: Filmmaker Calls Movie ‘Disrespectful.’” Huffington Post 24 Dec. 2012. 14 June 2013 ‹http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/23/spike-lee-django-unchained-movie-disrespectful_n_2356729.html›. Wu-Tang Clan. Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Loud, 1993. Filmography The 36th Chamber of Shaolin. Dir. Chia-Liang Lui. Perf. Chia Hui Lui, Lieh Lo, Chia Yung Lui. Shaw Brothers, 1978. Django Unchained. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Christoph Waltz. Miramax, 2012. Five Deadly Venoms. Dir. Cheh Chang. Perf. Sheng Chiang, Philip Kwok, Feng Lu. Shaw Brothers, 1978. Jackie Brown. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster. Miramax, 1997. Kill Bill: Vol. 1. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Darryl Hannah. Miramax, 2003. The Man with the Iron Fists. Dir. RZA. Perf. RZA, Russell Crowe, Lucy Liu. Arcade Pictures, 2012. Pulp Fiction. Dir. Quentin Tarantino. Perf. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson. Miramax, 1994. Shaolin and Wu-Tang. Dir. Chiu Hui Liu. Perf. Chiu Hui Liu, Adam Cheng, Li Ching.

The use of the term authenticity in the social science literature can be rather eclectic at best and unscrupulous at worst. (Vanini, 74)We live in an age of authenticity, according to Charles Taylor, an era which prizes the finding of one’s life “against the demands of external conformity” (67–68). Taylor’s argument is that, correctly practiced, authenticity need not result in individualism or tribalism but rather a generation of people “made more self-responsible” (77).Philip Vanini has surveyed the turn toward authenticity in sociology. He has parsed the word authenticity, and argued that it has been used in three ways—factual, original, and sincere. A failure to attend to these distinctives, mixed with a “paucity of systematic empirical research” has resulted in abstract speculation (75). This article responds to Taylor’s analysis and Vanini’s challenge.My argument utilises Vanini’s theoretical frame—authenticity as factual, original, and sincere—to analyse empirical data gathered in the study of recent religious innovation occurring amongst a set of (“alternative worship”) Christian communities in the United Kingdom. I am drawing upon longitudinal research I have conducted, including participant observation in digital forums from 1997 to the present, along with semi-structured interviews conducted in the United Kingdom in 2001 and 2012.A study of “alternative worship” was deemed significant given such communities’s interaction with contemporary culture, including their use of dance music, multi-media, and social media (Baker, Taylor). Such approaches contrast with other contemporary religious approaches to culture, including a fundamentalist retreat from culture or the maintenance of a “high” culture, and thus inherited patterns of religious expression (Roberts).I argue that the discourse of “alternative worship” deploy authenticity-as-originality as essential to their identity creation. This notion of authenticity is used by these communities to locate themselves culturally (as authentically-original in contemporary cultures), and thus simultaneously to define themselves as marginal from mainstream religious expression.Intriguingly, a decade later, “alternative worship” was appropriated by the mainstream. A new organisation—Fresh Expressions—emerged from within the Church of England, and the Methodist Church in Britain that, as it developed, drew on “alternative worship” for legitimation. A focus on authenticity provides a lens by which to pay particular attention to the narratives offered by social organisations in the processes of innovation. How did the discourse deployed by Fresh Expressions in creating innovation engage “alternative worship” as an existing innovation? How did these “alternative worship” groups, who had found generative energy in their location as an alternative—authentically-original—expression, respond to this appropriation by mainstream religious life?A helpful conversation partner in teasing out the complexity of these moves within contemporary religious innovation is Sarah Thornton. She researched trends in dance clubs, and rave music in Britain, during a similar time period. Thornton highlighted the value of authenticity, which she argued was deployed in club cultures to create “subcultural capital” (98-105). She further explored how the discourses around authenticity were appropriated over time through the complex networks within which popular culture flows (Bennett; Collins; Featherstone; McRobbie; Willis).This article will demonstrate that a similar pattern—using authenticity-as-originality to create “subcultural capital”—was at work in “alternative worship.” Further, the notions of authenticity as factual, original, and sincere are helpful in parsing the complex networks that exist within the domains of religious cultures. This analysis will be two-fold, first as the mainstream appropriates, and second as the “alternative” responds.Thornton emerged “post-Birmingham.” She drew on the scholarship associated with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, glad of their turn toward popular culture. Nevertheless she considered her work to be distinct. Thornton posited the construction of “taste cultures” through distinctions created by those inside a particular set of signs and symbols. She argued for a networked view of society, one that recognised the complex roles of media and commerce in constructing distinctions and sought a more multi-dimensional frame by which to analyse the interplay between mainstream and marginal.In order to structure my investigation, I am suggesting three stages of development capture the priority, yet complexity, of authenticity in contemporary religious innovation: generation, appropriation, complexification.Generation of Authenticity-as-OriginalityThornton (26, italics original) writes:authenticity is arguably the most important value ascribed to popular music … Music is perceived as authentic when it rings true or feels real, when it has credibility and comes across as genuine. In an age of endless representations and global mediation, the experience of musical authenticity is perceived as a cure both for alienation … and dissimulation.Thornton is arguing that in this manifestation of youth culture, authenticity is valued. Further, authenticity is a perception, attached to phrases like “rings true” and “feels real.” Therefore, authenticity is hard to measure. Perhaps this move is deliberate, an attempt by those inside the “taste culture” to preserve their “subcultural capital,”—their particular sets of distinctions.Thornton’s use of authentic slides between authenticity-as-sincerity and authenticity-as-originality. For example, in the above quote, the language of “true” and “real” is a referencing of authenticity-as-sincerity. However, as Thornton analysed the appropriation of club culture by the mainstream, she is drawing, without stating it clearly, on both authenticity-as-sincerity and authenticity-as-originality.At around the time that Thornton was analysing club cultures, a number of Christian religious groups in the United Kingdom began to incorporate features of club culture into their worship services. Churches began to experiment with services beginning at club times (9.00 pm), the playing of dance music, and the use of “video-jockeying.” According to Roberts many of these worshipping communities “had close links to this movement in dance culture” (15).A discourse of authenticity was used to legitimise such innovation. Consider the description of one worship experience, located in Sheffield, England, known as Nine o’Clock Service (Fox 9-10, italics original).We enter a round, darkened room where there are forty-two television sets and twelve large video screens and projections around the walls—projections of dancing DNA, dancing planets and galaxies and atoms … this was a very friendly place for a generation raised on television and images … these people … are doing it themselves and in the center of the city and in the center of their society: at worship itself.This description makes a number of appeals to authenticity. The phrase “a generation raised on television and images” implies another generation not raised in digitally rich environments. A “subcultural” distinction has been created. The phrase “doing it themselves” suggests that this ‘digital generation’ creates something distinct, an authentic expression of their “taste culture.” The celebration of “doing it for themselves” resonates with Charles Taylor’s analysis of an age of authenticity in which self-discovery is connected with artistic creation (62).The Nine o’Clock Service gained nationwide attention, attracting attendances of over 600 young people. Rogerson described it as “a bold and imaginative attempt at contextual theology … people were attracted to it in the first instance for aesthetic and cultural reasons” (51). The priority on the aesthetic and the cultural, in contrast to the doctrinal, suggests a valuing of authenticity-as-originality.Reading Rogerson alongside Taylor teases out a further nuance in regard to the application of authenticity. Rogerson described the Nine o’Clock Service as offering “an alternative way of living in a materialist and acquisitive world” (50). This resonates with Charles Taylor’s argument that authenticity can be practiced in ways that make people “more self-responsible” (77). It suggests that the authenticity-as-originality expressed by the Nine o’Clock Service not only appealed culturally, but also offered an ethic of authenticity. We will return to this later in my argument.Inspired by the Nine o’Clock Service, other groups in the United Kingdom began to offer a similar experience. According to Adrian Riley (6):The Nine O’clock Service … was the first worshipping community to combine elements of club culture with passionate worship … It pioneered what is commonly known as “alternative worship” … Similar groups were established themselves albeit on a smaller scale.The very term “alternative worship” is significant. Sociologist of religion Abby Day argued that “boundary-marking [creates] an identity” (50). Applying Day, the term “alternative” is being used to create an identity in contrast to the existing, mainstream church. The “digitally rich” are indeed “doing it for themselves.” To be “alternative” is to be authentically-original: to be authentically-original means a participant cannot, by definition, be mainstream.Thornton argued that subcultures needed to define themselves against in order to maintain themselves as “hip” (119). This seems to describe the use of the term “alternative.” Ironically, the mainstream is needed, in order to define against, to create identity by being authentically-original (Kelly).Hence the following claim by an “alternative worship” organiser (Interview G, 2001):People were willing to play around and to say, well who knows what will happen if we run this video clip or commercial next to this sixteenth century religious painting and if we play, you know, Black Flag or some weird band underneath it … And what will it feel like? Well let’s try it and see.Note the link with music (Black Flag, an American hard core punk band formed in 1976), so central to Thornton’s understanding of authenticity in popular youth cultures. Note also the similarity between Thornton’s ascribing of value in words like “rings true” and “feels real,” with words like “feel like” and “try and see.” The word “weird” is also significant. It is deployed as a signifier of authenticity, a sign of “subcultural capital.” It positions them as “alternative,” defined in (musical) distinction from the mainstream.In sum, my argument is that authenticity-as-originality is present in “alternative worship”: in the name, in the ethos of “doing it themselves,” and in the deploying of “subcultural capital” in the legitimation of innovation. All of this has been clarified through conversation with Thornton’s empirical research regarding the value of authenticity in club culture. My analysis of “alternative worship” as a religious innovation is consistent with Taylor’s claim that we inhabit an age of authenticity, one that can be practiced by “people who are made more self-responsible” (77).Mainstream AppropriationIn 2004, the Church of England produced Mission Shaped Church (MSC), a report regarding its future. It included a chapter that described recent religious innovation in England, grouped under twelve headings (alternative worship and base ecclesial communities, café, cell, network and seeker church models, multiple and mid week congregations, new forms of traditional churches, school and community-based initiatives, traditional church plants, youth congregations). The first innovation listed is “alternative worship.”The incoming Archbishop, Rowan Williams, drew on MSC to launch a new organisation. Called Fresh Expressions, over five million pounds was provided by the Church of England to fund an organisation to support this religious innovation.Intriguingly, recognition of authenticity in these “alternative” innovations was evident in the institutional discourse being created. When I interviewed Williams, he spoke of his commitment as a Bishop (Interview 6, 2012):I decided to spend a certain amount of quality time with people on the edge. Consequently when I was asked initially what are my priorities [as Archbishop] I said, “Well, this is what I’ve been watching on the edge … I really want to see how that could impact on the Church of England as a whole.In other words, what was marginal, what had until then generated identity by being authentic in contrast to the mainstream, was now being appropriated by the mainstream “to impact on the Church of England as a whole.” MSC was aware of this complexity. “Alternative worship” was described as containing “a strong desire to be different and is most vocal in its repudiation of existing church” (45). Nevertheless, it was appropriated by the mainstream.My argument has been that “alternative worship” drew on a discourse of authenticity-as-originality. Yet when we turn to analyse mainstream appropriation, we find the definitions of authenticity begin to slide. Authenticity-as-originality is affirmed, while authenticity-as-sincerity is introduced. The MSC affirmed the “ways in which the Church of England has sought to engage with the diverse cultures and networks that are part of contemporary life” (80). It made explicit the connection between originality and authenticity. “Some pioneers and leaders have yearned for a more authentic way of living, being, doing church” (80). This can be read as an affirmation of authenticity-as-originality.Yet MSC also introduced authenticity-as-sincerity as a caution to authenticity-as-originality. “Fresh expressions should not be embraced simply because they are popular and new, but because they are a sign of the work of God and of the kingdom” (80). Thus Fresh Expressions introduced authenticity-as-sincerity (sign of the work of God) and placed it alongside authenticity-as-originality. In so doing, in the shift from “alternative worship” to Fresh Expressions, a space is both conflated (twelve expressions of church) and contested (two notions of authenticity). Conflated, because MSC places alternative worship as one innovation alongside eleven others. Contested because of the introduction of authenticity-as-sincerity alongside the affirming of authenticity-as-originality. What is intriguing is to return to Taylor’s argument for the possibility of an ethic of authenticity in which “people are made more self-responsible” (77). Perhaps the response in MSC arises from the concern described by Taylor, the risk in an age of authenticity of a society that is more individualised and tribal (55-6). To put it in distinctly ecclesiological terms, how can the church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic be carried forward if authenticity-as-originality is celebrated at, and by, the margins? Does innovation contribute to more atomised, self-absorbed and fragmented expressions of church?Yet Taylor is adamant that authenticity can be embraced without an inevitable slide in these directions. He argued that humans share a "horizon of significance" in common (52), in which one’s own "identity crucially depends on [one’s] dialogical relations with others" (48). We have already considered Rogerson’s claim that the Nine o’Clock Service offered “an alternative way of living in a materialist and acquisitive world” (50). It embraced a “strong political dimension, and a concern for justice at local and international level” (46). In other words, “alternative worship’s” authenticity-as-originality was surely already an expression of “the kingdom,” one in which “people [were] made more self-responsible” (77) in the sharing of (drawing on Taylor) a "horizon of significance" in the task of identity-formation-in-relationships (52).Yet the placing in MSC of authenticity-as-sincerity alongside authenticity-as-originality could easily have been read by those in “alternative worship” as a failure to recognise their existing practicing of the ethic of authenticity, their embodying of “the kingdom.”Consequent ComplexificationMy research into “alternative worship” is longitudinal. After the launch of Fresh Expressions, I included a new set of interview questions, which sought to clarify how these “alternative worship” communities were impacted upon by the appropriation of “alternative worship” by the mainstream. The responses can be grouped into three categories: minimal impact, a sense of affirmation and a contested complexity.With regard to minimal impact, some “alternative worship” communities perceived the arrival of Fresh Expressions had minimal impact on their shared expression of faith. The following quote was representative: “Has had no impact at all actually. Apart from to be slightly puzzled” (Interview 3, 2012).Others found the advent of Fresh Expressions provided a sense of affirmation. “Fresh expressions is … an enabling concept. It was very powerful” (Focus group 2, 2012). Respondents in this category felt that their innovations within alternative worship had contributed to, or been valued by, the innovation of Fresh Expressions. Interestingly, those whose comments could be grouped in this category had significant “subcultural capital” invested in this mainstream appropriation. Specifically, they now had a vocational role that in some way was connected to Fresh Expressions. In using the term “subcultural capital” I am again drawing on Thornton (98–105), who argued that in the complex networks through which culture flows, certain people, for example DJ’s, have more influence in the ascribing of authenticity. This suggests that “subcultural” capital is also present in religious innovation, with certain individuals finding ways to influence, from the “alternative worship” margin, the narratives of authenticity used in the complex interplay between alternative worship and Fresh Expressions.For others the arrival of Fresh Expressions had resulted in a contested complexity. The following quote was representative: “It’s a crap piece of establishment branding …but then we’re just snobs” (Focus group 3, 2012). This comment returns us to my initial framing of authenticity-as-originality. I would argue that “we’re just snobs” has a similar rhetorical effect as “Black Flag or some weird band.” It is an act of marginal self-location essential in the construction of innovation and identity.This argument is strengthened given the fact that the comment was coming from a community that itself had become perhaps the most recognizable “brand” among “alternative worship.” They have developed their own logo, website, and related online merchandising. This would suggest the concern is not the practice of marketing per se. Rather the concern is that it seems “crap” in relation to authenticity-as-originality, in a loss of aesthetic quality and a blurring of the values of innovation and identity as it related to bold, imaginative, aesthetic, and cultural attempts at contextual theology (Rogerson 51).Returning to Thornton, her research was also longitudinal in that she explored what happened when a song from a club, which had defined itself against the mainstream and as “hip,” suddenly experienced mainstream success (119). What is relevant to this investigation into religious innovation is her argument that in club culture, “selling out” is perceived to have happened only when the marginal community “loses its sense of possession, exclusive ownership and familiar belonging” (124–26).I would suggest that this is what is happening within “alternative worship” in response to the arrival of Fresh Expressions. Both “alternative worship” and Fresh Expressions are religious innovations. But Fresh Expressions defined itself in a way that conflated the space. It meant that the boundary marking so essential to “alternative worship” was lost. Some gained from this. Others struggled with a loss of imaginative and cultural creativity, a softening of authenticity-as-originality.More importantly, the discourse around Fresh Expressions also introduced authenticity-as-sincerity as a value that could be used to contest authenticity-as-originality. Whether intended or not, this also challenged the ethic of authenticity already created by these “alternative worship” communities. Their authenticity-as-originality was already a practicing of an ethic of authenticity. They were already sharing a "horizon of significance" with humanity, entering into “dialogical relations with others" that were a contemporary expression of the church as one, holy, catholic and apostolic (Taylor 52, 48). ConclusionIn this article I have analysed the discourse around authenticity as it is manifest within one strand of contemporary religious innovation. Drawing on Vanini, Taylor, and Thornton, I have explored the generative possibilities as media and culture are utilised in an “alternative worship” that is authentically-original. I have outlined the consequences when authenticity-as-originality is appropriated by the mainstream, specifically in the innovation known as Fresh Expressions and the complexity when authenticity-as-sincerity is introduced as a contested value.The value of authenticity has been found to exist in a complex relationship with the ethics of authenticity within one domain of contemporary religious innovation.ReferencesBaker, Jonny. “Alternative Worship and the Significance of Popular Culture.” Honours paper: U of London, 2000.Bennett, Andy. Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity, and Place. New York: Palgrave, 2000.Cronshaw, Darren, and Steve Taylor. “The Congregation in a Pluralist Society: Rereading Newbigin for Missional Churches Today.” Pacifica: Australasian Theological Studies 27.2 (2014): 1-24.Day, Abby. Believing in Belonging. Belief and Social Identity in the Modern World. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2011.Collins, Jim, ed. High-Pop. Making Culture into Popular Entertainment. Oxford: Blackwells, 2002.Cray, Graham. Mission-Shaped Church: Church Planting and Fresh Expressions of Church in a Changing Culture, London: Church House Publishing, 2004.Featherstone, Mike. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism. London: Sage, 1991.Fox, Matthew. Confessions: The Making of a Post-Denominational Priest. San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1996.Guest, Matthew, and Steve Taylor. “The Post-Evangelical Emerging Church: Innovations in New Zealand and the UK.” International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 6.1 (2006): 49-64.Howard, Roland. The Rise and Fall of the Nine o’Clock Service. London: Continuum, 1996.Kelly, Gerard. Get a Grip on the Future without Losing Your Hold in the Past. Great Britain: Monarch, 1999.Kelly, Steven. “Book Review. Alt.Culture by Steven Daly and Nathaniel Wice.” 20 Aug. 2003. ‹http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/cult.html›.McRobbie, Angela. Postmodernism and Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1994.Riley, Adrian. God in the House: UK Club Culture and Spirituality. 1999. 15 Oct. 2003 ‹http://www.btmc.org.auk/altworship/house/›.Roberts, Paul. Alternative Worship in the Church of England. Cambridge: Grove Books, 1999.Rogerson, J. W. “‘The Lord Is here’: The Nine o’Clock Service.” Why Liberal Churches Are Growing. Eds. Ian Markham and Martyn Percy. London: Bloomsbury T & T, 2006. 45-52.Taylor, Charles. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1992.Taylor, Steve. “Baptist Worship and Contemporary Culture: A New Zealand Case Study.” Interfaces: Baptists and Others. Eds. David Bebbington and Martin Sutherland. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2013. 292-307.Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures. Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Hanover: UP New England, 1996.Vanini, Philip. “Authenticity.” Encyclopedia of Consumer Culture. Ed. Dale Southerton. Los Angeles: Sage, 2011. 74-76.Willis, Paul E., et al. Common Culture. Symbolic Work at Play in the Everyday Cultures of the Young. Milton Keynes: Open UP, 1990.

Introduction Negative stereotyping of alternative diets such as veganism and other plant-based diets has been common in Australia, conventionally a meat-eating culture (OECD qtd. in Ting). Indeed, meat consumption in Australia is sanctioned by the ubiquity of advertising linking meat-eating to health, vitality and nation-building, and public challenges to such plant-based diets as veganism. In addition, state, commercial enterprises, and various community groups overtly resist challenges to Australian meat-eating norms and to the intensive animal husbandry practices that underpin it. Hence activists, who may contest not simply this norm but many of the customary industry practices that comprise Australia’s meat production, have been accused of promoting a vegan agenda and even of undermining the “Australian way of life”.If veganism meansa philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of humans, animals and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals. (Vegan Society)then our interest in this article lies in how a stereotyped label of veganism (and other associated attributes) is being used across Australian public spheres to challenge the work of animal activists as they call out factory farming for entrenched animal cruelty. This is carried out in three main parts. First, following an outline of our research approach, we examine the processes of stereotyping and the key dimensions of vegan stereotyping. Second, in the main part of the article, we reveal how opponents to such animal activist organisations as Animals Australia attempt to undermine activist calls for change by framing them as promoting an un-Australian vegan agenda. Finally, we consider how, despite such framing, that organisation is generating productive public debate around animal welfare, and, further, facilitating the creation of new activist identifications and identities.Research ApproachData collection involved searching for articles where Animals Australia and animal activism were yoked with veg*n (vegan and vegetarian), across the period May 2011 to 2016 (discussion peaked between May and June 2013). This period was of interest because it exposed a flare point with public discord being expressed between communities—namely between rural and urban consumers, farmers and animal activists, Coles Supermarkets (identified by The Australian Government the Treasury as one of two major supermarkets holding over 65% share of Australian food retail market) and their producers—and a consequent voicing of disquiet around Australian identity. We used purposive sampling (Waller, Farquharson, and Dempsey 67) to identify relevant materials as we knew in advance the case was “information-rich” (Patton 181) and would provide insightful information about a “troublesome” phenomenon (Emmel 6). Materials were collected from online news articles (30) and readers’ comments (167), online magazines (2) and websites (2) and readers’ comments (3), news items (Factiva 13), Australian Broadcasting Commission television (1) and radio (1), public blogs (2), and Facebook pages from involved organisations, specifically Australia’s National Farmers’ Federation (NFF, 155 posts) and Coles Supermarkets (29 posts). Many of these materials were explicitly responsive to a) Animals Australia’s Make It Possible campaign against Australian factory farming (launched and highly debated during this period), and b) Coles Supermarket’s short-lived partnership with Animals Australia in 2013. We utilised content analysis so as to make visible the most prominent and consistent stereotypes utilised in these various materials during the identified period. The approach allowed us to code and categorise materials so as to determine trends and patterns of words used, their relationships, and key structures and ways of speaking (Weerakkody). In addition, discourse analysis (Gee) was used in order to identify and track “language-in-use” so as to make visible the stereotyping deployed during the public reception of both the campaign and Animals Australia’s associated partnership with Coles. These methods enabled a “nuanced approach” (Coleman and Moss 12) with which to spot putdowns, innuendos, and stereotypical attitudes.Vegan StereotypingStereotypes creep into everyday language and are circulated and amplified through mainstream media, speeches by public figures, and social media. Stereotypes maintain their force through being reused and repurposed, making them difficult to eradicate due to their “cumulative effects” and influence (Harris and Sanborn 38; Inzlicht, Tullett, Legault, and Kang; Pickering). Over time stereotypes can become the lens through which we view “the world and social reality” (Harris and Sanborn 38; Inzlicht et al.). In summation, stereotyping:reduces identity categories to particular sets of deeds, attributes and attitudes (Whitley and Kite);informs individuals’ “cognitive investments” (Blum 267) by associating certain characteristics with particular groups;comprises symbolic and connotative codes that carry sets of traits, deeds, or beliefs (Cover; Rosello), and;becomes increasingly persuasive through regulating language and image use as well as identity categories (Cover; Pickering; Rosello).Not only is the “iterative force” (Rosello 35) of such associative stereotyping compounded due to its dissemination across digital media sites such as Facebook, YouTube, websites, and online news, but attempts to denounce it tend to increase its “persuasive power” (29). Indeed, stereotypes seem to refuse “to die” (23), remaining rooted in social and cultural memory (Whitley and Kite 10).As such, despite the fact that there is increasing interest in Australia and elsewhere in new food norms and plant-based diets (see, e.g., KPMG), as well as in vegan lifestyle options (Wright), studies still show that vegans remain a negatively stereotyped group. Previous studies have suggested that vegans mark a “symbolic threat” to Western, conventionally meat-eating cultures (MacInnis and Hodson 722; Stephens Griffin; Cole and Morgan). One key UK study of national newspapers, for instance, showed vegans continuing to be discredited in multiple ways as: 1) “self-evidently ridiculous”; 2) “ascetics”; 3) having a lifestyle difficult and impossible to maintain; 4) “faddist”; 5) “oversensitive”; and 6) “hostile extremists” (Cole and Morgan 140–47).For many Australians, veganism also appears anathema to their preferred culture and lifestyle of meat-eating. For instance, the NFF, Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), and other farming bodies continue to frame veganism as marking an extreme form of lifestyle, as anti-farming and un-Australian. Such perspectives are also circulated through online rural news and readers’ comments, as will be discussed later in the article. Such representations are further exemplified by the MLA’s (Lamb, Australia Day, Celebrate Australia) Australia Day lamb advertising campaigns (Bembridge; Canning). For multiple consecutive years, the campaign presented vegans (and vegetarians) as being self-evidently ridiculous and faddish, representing them as mentally unhinged and fringe dwellers. Such stereotyping not only invokes “affective reactions” (Whitley and Kite 8)—including feelings of disgust towards individuals living such lifestyles or holding such values—but operates as “political baits” (Rosello 18) to shore-up or challenge certain social or political positions.Although such advertisements are arguably satirical, their repeated screening towards and on Australia Day highlights deeply held views about the normalcy of animal agriculture and meat-eating, “homogenizing” (Blum 276; Pickering) both meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters alike. Cultural stereotyping of this kind amplifies “social” as well as political schisms (Blum 276), and arguably discourages consumers—whether meat-eaters or non-meat-eaters—from advocating together around shared goals such as animal welfare and food safety. Additionally, given the rise of new food practices in Australia—including flexitarian, reducetarian, pescatarian, kangatarian (a niche form of ethical eating), vegivores, semi-vegetarian, vegetarian, veganism—alongside broader commitments to ethical consumption, such stereotyping suggests that consumers’ actual values and preferences are being disregarded in order to shore-up the normalcy of meat-eating.Animals Australia and the (So-Called) Vegan Agenda of Animal ActivismGiven these points, it is no surprise that there is a tacit belief in Australia that anyone labelled an animal activist must also be vegan. Within this context, we have chosen to primarily focus on the attitudes towards the campaigning work of Animals Australia—a not-for-profit organisation representing some 30 member groups and over 2 million individual supporters (Animals Australia, “Who Is”)—as this organisation has been charged as promoting a vegan agenda. Along with the RSPCA and Voiceless, Animals Australia represents one of the largest animal protection organisations within Australia (Chen). Its mission is to:Investigate, expose and raise community awareness of animal cruelty;Provide animals with the strongest representation possible to Government and other decision-makers;Educate, inspire, empower and enlist the support of the community to prevent and prohibit animal cruelty;Strengthen the animal protection movement. (Animals Australia, “Who Is”)In delivery of this mission, the organisation curates public rallies and protests, makes government and industry submissions, and utilises corporate outreach. Campaigning engages the Web, multiple forms of print and broadcast media, and social media.With regards to Animals Australia’s campaigns regarding factory farming—including the Make It Possible campaign (see fig. 1), launched in 2013 and key to the period we are investigating—the main message is that: the animals kept in these barren and constrictive conditions are “no different to our pets at home”; they are “highly intelligent creatures who feel pain, and who will respond to kindness and affection – if given the chance”; they are “someone, not something” (see the Make It Possible transcript). Campaigns deliberately strive to engender feelings of empathy and produce affect in viewers (see, e.g., van Gurp). Specifically they strive to produce mainstream recognition of the cruelties entrenched in factory farming practices and build community outrage against these practices so as to initiate industry change. Campaigns thus expressly challenge Australians to no longer support factory farmed animal products, and to identify with what we have elsewhere called everyday activist positions (Rodan and Mummery, “Animal Welfare”; “Make It Possible”). They do not, however, explicitly endorse a vegan position. Figure 1: Make It Possible (Animals Australia, campaign poster)Nonetheless, as has been noted, a common counter-tactic used within Australia by the industries targeted by such campaigns, has been to use well-known negative stereotypes to discredit not only the charges of systemic animal cruelty but the associated organisations. In our analysis, we found four prominent interconnected stereotypes utilised in both digital and print media to discredit the animal welfare objectives of Animals Australia. Together these cast the organisation as: 1) anti-meat-eating; 2) anti-farming; 3) promoting a vegan agenda; and 4) hostile extremists. These stereotypes are examined below.Anti-Meat-EatingThe most common stereotype attributed to Animals Australia from its campaigning is of being anti-meat-eating. This charge, with its associations with veganism, is clearly problematic for industries that facilitate meat-eating and within a culture that normalises meat-eating, as the following example expresses:They’re [Animals Australia] all about stopping things. They want to stop factory farming – whatever factory farming is – or they want to stop live exports. And in fact they’re not necessarily about: how do I improve animal welfare in the pig industry? Or how do I improve animal welfare in the live export industry? Because ultimately they are about a meat-free future world and we’re about a meat producing industry, so there’s not a lot of overlap, really between what we’re doing. (Andrew Spencer, Australian Pork Ltd., qtd. in Clark)Respondents engaging this stereotype also express their “outrage at Coles” (McCarthy) and Animals Australia for “pedalling [sic]” a pro-vegan agenda (Nash), their sense that Animals Australia is operating with ulterior motives (Flint) and criminal intent (Brown). They see cultural refocus as unnecessary and “an exercise in futility” (Harris).Anti-FarmingTo be anti-farming in Australia is generally considered to be un-Australian, with Glasgow suggesting that any criticism of “farming practices” in Australian society can be “interpreted as an attack on the moral integrity of farmers, amounting to cultural blasphemy” (200). Given its objectives, it is unsurprising that Animals Australia has been stereotyped as being “anti-farming”, a phrase additionally often used in conjunction with the charge of veganism. Although this comprises a misreading of veganism—given its focus on challenging animal exploitation in farming rather than entailing opposition to all farming—the NFF accused Animals Australia of being “blatantly anti-farming and proveganism” (Linegar qtd. in Nason) and as wanting “to see animal agriculture phased out” (National Farmers’ Federation). As expressed in more detail:One of the main factors for VFF and other farmers being offended is because of AA’s opinion and stand on ALL farming. AA wants all farming banned and us all become vegans. Is it any wonder a lot of people were upset? Add to that the proceeds going to AA which may have been used for their next criminal activity washed against the grain. If people want to stand against factory farming they have the opportunity not to purchase them. Surely not buying a product will have a far greater impact on factory farmed produce. Maybe the money could have been given to farmers? (Hunter)Such stereotyping reveals how strongly normalised animal agriculture is in Australia, as well as a tendency on the part of respondents to reframe the challenge of animal cruelty in some farming practices into a position supposedly challenging all farming practices.Promoting a Vegan AgendaAs is already clear, Animals Australia is often reproached for promoting a vegan agenda, which, it is further suggested, it keeps hidden from the Australian public. This viewpoint was evident in two key examples: a) the Australian public and organisations such as the NFF are presented as being “defenceless” against the “myopic vitriol of the vegan abolitionists” (Jonas); and b) Animals Australia is accused of accepting “loans from liberation groups” and being “supported by an army of animal rights lawyers” to promote a “hard core” veganism message (Bourke).Nobody likes to see any animals hurt, but pushing a vegan agenda and pushing bad attitudes by group members is not helping any animals and just serves to slow any progress both sides are trying to resolve. (V.c. Deb Ford)Along with undermining farmers’ “legitimate business” (Jooste), veganism was also considered to undermine Australia’s rural communities (Park qtd. in Malone).Hostile ExtremistsThe final stereotype linking veganism with Animals Australia was of hostile extremism (cf. Cole and Morgan). This means, for users, being inimical to Australian national values but, also, being akin to terrorists who engage in criminal activities antagonistic to Australia’s democratic society and economic livelihood (see, e.g., Greer; ABC News). It is the broad symbolic threat that “extremism” invokes that makes this stereotype particularly “infectious” (Rosello 19).The latest tag team attacks on our pork industry saw AL giving crash courses in how to become a career criminal for the severely impressionable, after attacks on the RSPCA against the teachings of Peter Singer and trying to bully the RSPCA into vegan functions menu. (Cattle Advocate)The “extremists” want that extended to dairy products, as well. The fact that this will cause the total annihilation of practically all animals, wild and domestic, doesn’t bother them in the least. (Brown)What is interesting about these last two dimensions of stereotyping is their displacement of violence. That is, rather than responding to the charge of animal cruelty, violence and extremism is attributed to those making the charge.Stereotypes and Symbolic Boundary ShiftingWhat is evident throughout these instances is how stereotyping as a “cognitive mechanism” is being used to build boundaries (Cherry 460): in the first instance, between “us” (the meat-eating majority) and “them” (the vegan minority aka animal activists); and secondly between human interest and livestock. This point is that animals may hold instrumental value and receive some protection through such, but any more stringent arguments for their protection at the expense of perceived human interests tend to be seen as wrong-headed (Sorenson; Munro).These boundaries are deeply entrenched in Western culture (Wimmer). They are also deeply problematic in the context of animal activism because they fragment publics, promote restrictive identities, and close down public debate (Lamont and Molnár). Boundary entrenching is clearly evident in the stereotyping work carried out by industry stakeholders where meat-eating and practices of industrialised animal agriculture are valorised and normalised. Challenging Australia’s meat production practices—irrespective of the reason given—is framed and belittled as entailing a vegan agenda, and further as contributing to the demise of farming and rural communities in Australia.More broadly, industry stakeholders are explicitly targeting the activist work by such organisations as Animals Australia as undermining the ‘Australian way of life’. In their reading, there is an irreconcilable boundary between human and animal interests and between an activist minority which is vegan, unreasonable, extremist and hostile to farming and the meat-eating majority which is representative of the Australian community and sustains the Australian economy. As discussed so far, such stereotyping and boundary making—even in their inaccuracies—can be pernicious in the way they entrench identities and divisions, and close the possibility for public debate.Rather than directly contesting the presuppositions and inaccuracies of such stereotyping, however, Animals Australia can be read as cultivating a process of symbolic boundary shifting. That is, rather than responding by simply underlining its own moderate position of challenging only intensive animal agriculture for systemic animal cruelty, Animals Australia uses its campaigns to develop “boundary blurring and crossing” tactics (Cherry 451, 459), specifically to dismantle and shift the symbolic boundaries conventionally in place between humans and non-human animals in the first instance, and between those non-human animals used for companionship and those used for food in the second (see fig. 2). Figure 2: That Ain’t No Way to Treat a Lady (Animals Australia, campaign image on back of taxi)Indeed, the symbolic boundaries between humans and animals left unquestioned in the preceding stereotyping are being profoundly shaken by Animals Australia with campaigns such as Make It Possible making morally relevant likenesses between humans and animals highly visible to mainstream Australians. Namely, the organisation works to interpellate viewers to exercise their own capacities for emotional identification and moral imagination, to identify with animals’ experiences and lives, and to act upon that identification to demand change.So, rather than reactively striving to refute the aforementioned stereotypes, organisations such as Animals Australia are modelling and facilitating symbolic boundary shifting by building broad, emotionally motivated, pathways through which Australians are being encouraged to refocus their own assumptions, practices and identities regarding animal experience, welfare and animal-human relations. Indeed the organisation has explicitly framed itself as speaking on behalf of not only animals but all caring Australians, suggesting thereby the possibility of a reframing of Australian national identity. Although such a tactic does not directly contest this negative stereotyping—direct contestation being, as noted, ineffective given the perniciousness of stereotyping—such work nonetheless dismantles the oppositional charge of such stereotyping in calling for all Australians to proudly be a little bit anti-meat-eating (when that meat is from factory farmed animals), a little bit anti-factory farming, a little bit pro-veg*n, and a little bit proud to consider themselves as caring about animal welfare.For Animals Australia, in other words, appealing to Australians to care about animal welfare and to act in support of that care, not only defuses the stereotypes targeting them but encourages the work of symbolic boundary shifting that is really at the heart of this dispute. Further research into the reception of the debate would give a sense of the extent to which such an approach is making a difference.ReferencesABC News. “Animal Rights Activists ‘Akin to Terrorists’, Says NSW Minister Katrina Hodgkinson.” ABC News 18 Jul. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-18/animal-rights-activists-27terrorists272c-says-nsw-minister/4828556>.Animals Australia. “Who Is Animals Australia?” 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.animalsaustralia.org/about>.———. Make It Possible. Video and transcript. 21 Oct. 2012. 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fM6V6lq_p0o>.The Australian Government the Treasury. Independent Review of the Food and Grocery Code of Conduct: Final Report. Commonwealth of Australia, 2018. 1 Apr. 2019 <https://treasury.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019-03/Independent-review-of-the-Food-and-Grocery-Code-of-Conduct-Final-Report.pdf>.Bembridge, Courtney. “Australia Day Lamb Ad, Starring Lee Lin Chin, Attracts Dozens of Complaints from Vegans.” ABC News 20 Jan. 2016. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-11/vegans-lodge-complaints-over-lamb-ad/7081706>.Blum, Lawrence. “Stereotypes and Stereotyping: A Moral Analysis.” Philosophical Papers 33.3 (2004): 251–89.Bourke, John. “Coles Undermines Our Way of Life.” Weekly Times Now 5 Jun. 2013. 19 Jun. 2013 <http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/article/2013/06/05/572335_opinion-news.html>.Brown, Frank. “Letter to the Editor.” Northern Miner 9 Dec. 2014. 18 Nov. 2017 <http://www.newscorpaustralia.com/brand/northern-miner>.Canning, Simon. “MLA’s Australia Day Vegan Flaming Lamb Ad Cleared by Advertising Watchdog.” Mumbrella News 19 Jan. 2016. 18 Nov. 2017 <https://mumbrella.com.au/mlas-australia-day-vegan-flaming-lamb-ad-cleared-by-advertising-watchdog-340779>.Cattle Advocate. “Coles Bags a Boost for NFF.” Farm Weekly 3 Jul. 2013. 20 Feb. 2018 <http://www.farmweekly.com.au/news/agriculture/agribusiness/general-news/coles-bags-a-boost-for-nff/2660179.aspx>.Chen, Peter John. Animal Welfare in Australia: Politics and Policy. Sydney: U of Sydney Press, 2016.Cherry, Elizabeth. “Shifting Symbolic Boundaries: Cultural Strategies of the Animal Rights Movement.” Sociological Forum 25.3 (2010): 450–75.Clark, Chris. “Animals Australia under the Microscope.” ABC Landline 16 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.abc.net.au/landline/ content/2013/s3782456.htm>.Cole, Matthew, and Karen Morgan. “Vegaphobia: Derogatory Discourses of Veganism and the Reproduction of Speciesism in UK National Newspapers.” The British Journal of Sociology 62.1 (2011): 134–53.Coleman, Stephen, and Giles Moss. “Under Construction: The Field of Online Deliberation Research.” Journal of Information Technology and Politics 9.1 (2012): 1–15.Cover, Rob. “Digital Difference: Theorizing Frameworks of Bodies, Representation and Stereotypes in Digital Games.” Asia Pacific Media Educator 26.1 (2016): 4–16.Emmel, Nick. “Purposeful Sampling.” Sampling and Choosing Cases in Qualitative Research: A Realist Approach. London: Sage Publications, 2013. 2–12. 28 Feb. 2019 <http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.ecu.edu.au/10.4135/9781473913882>.Flint, Nicole. “The ABC Continues to Broadcast Animals Australia Footage while Failing to Probe the Group’s Motivations.” The Advertiser 28 Oct. 2014. 18 Nov. 2017 <http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/>.Gee, James Paul. An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. 3rd ed. New York: Routledge, 2010.Glasgow, David. “The Law of the Jungle: Advocating for Animals in Australia.” Deakin Law Review 13.1 (2008): 181–210.Greer, Anna. “‘Akin to Terrorism’: The War on Animal Activists.” Overland 9 Aug. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://overland.org.au/2013/08/akin-to-terrorism-the-war-on-animal-activists/>Harris, Janeen. “Coles Are the Piggy in the Middle of Animal Welfare Confrontation.” The Conversation 13 Jun. 2013. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://theconversation.com/coles-are-the-piggy-in-the-middle-of-animal-welfare-confrontation-15078>.Harris, Richard Jackson, and Fred W. Sanborn. A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication. 6th ed. New York: Routledge, 2014.Hunter, Jim. “Animals Australia Bags Hot Property.” Weekly Times Now 10 Jun. 2013. 19 Jun. 2013 <http://tools.weeklytimesnow.com.au/yoursay/comment_all.php>.Inzlicht, Michael, Alexa M. Tullett, Lisa Legault, and Sonia K Kang. “Lingering Effects: Stereotype Threat Hurts More than You Think.” Social Issues and Policy Review 5.1 (2011): 227–56.Jonas, Tammi. “Coles & Animals Australia: Unlikely Bedfellows?” Blog post. 6 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.tammijonas.com/2013/06/06/coles-animals-australia-unlikely-bedfellows/>.Jooste, James. “Animals Australia Ready to Launch New Advertisements Calling for Ban on Live Exports, after Complaints about Previous Campaign Dismissed.” ABC News 16 Feb. 2016. 21 Feb. 2019 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2016-02-15/live-export-animals-australia-advertising-complaint-dismissed/7168534>.KPMG. Talking 2030: Growing Agriculture into a $100 Billion Industry. KPMG, 2018. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/f0cfd1_26dbb49eea91458d8b1606a0006ec20e.pdf>.Lamont, Michèle, and Virág Molnár. “The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences.” Annual Review of Sociology 28 (2002): 167–95.MacInnis, Cara C., and Gordon Hodson. “It Ain’t Easy Eating Greens: Evidence of Bias towards Vegetarians and Vegans from Both Source and Target.” Group Process and Intergroup Relations 20.6 (2017): 721–44.Malone, Paul. “Farmers Face Changing World.” The Canberra Times 9 Jun. 2013. 22 Nov. 2013 <https://www.canberratimes.com.au/>.McCarthy, John. “Farmers Angered by Coles Campaign.” The Courier-Mail 4 Jun. 2013. 24 Jun. 2013 <http://www.couriermail.com.au/>.Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA). Australia Day Lamb 2016: Commence Operation Boomerang. Video. 9 Jan. 2016. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7i15OPuFvmA>.———. Celebrate Australia with a Lamb BBQ. Video. 11 Jan. 2017. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LX__i-zeaWs>.———. “Lamb Campaigns.” No date. 8 Nov. 2017 <https://www.mla.com.au/marketing-beef-and-lamb/domestic-marketing/lamb-campaigns/>.Munro, Lyle. “Animals, ‘Nature’ and Human Interests.” Controversies in Environmental Sociology. Ed. Rob White. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 61–76.Nash, Fiona. “Nationals Senator Congratulating Animals Australia’s Damaging …. .” The Nationals for Regional Australia 6 Jun. 2013. 21 Jun. 2013 <http://nationals.org.au/>.Nason, James. “Coles Bagged over Animals Australia Campaign.” Beef Central. 4 Jun. 2013. 22 Nov. 2013 <http://www.beefcentral.com/news/coles-bagged-over-animals-australia-campaign/>.National Farmers’ Federation. Facebook post. 30 May 2013. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.facebook.com/NationalFarmers>.Patton, Michael Quinn. Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methods. 2nd ed. London: Sage, 1990. Pickering, Michael. Stereotyping: The Politics of Representation. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001.Rodan, Debbie, and Jane Mummery. “The ‘Make It Possible’ Multi-Media Campaign: Generating a New ‘Everyday’ in Animal Welfare.” Media International Australia, 153 (2014): 78–87.———. “Doing Animal Welfare Activism Everyday: Questions of Identity.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 30.4 (2016): 381–96.Rosello, Mireille. Declining the Stereotype: Ethnicity and Representation in French Culture. Hanover: U of New England, 1998.Sorenson John. “Constructing Terrorists: Propaganda about Animal Rights.” Critical Studies on Terrorism 2.2 (2009): 237-56.Stephens Griffin, Nathan. Understanding Veganism: Biography and Identity. Cham: Springer International, 2017.Ting, Inga. “Australia is the Meat-Eating Capital of the World.” The Sydney Morning Herald 27 Oct. 2015. 20 Feb. 2019 <http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/australia-is-the-meateating-capital-of-the-world-20151027-gkjhp4.html>.V.c. Deb Ford. “National Farmers Federation.” Facebook post. 30 May 2013. 26 Nov. 2013 <http://www.facebook.com/NationalFarmers>.Van Gurp, Marc. “Factory Farming the Musical.” Osocio 4 Nov. 2012. 21 Feb. 2019 <https://osocio.org/message/factory-farming-the-musical/>.Vegan Society. “History.” 20 Feb. 2019 <https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/history>.Waller, Vivienne, Karen Farquharson, and Deborah Dempsey. Qualitative Social Research: Contemporary Methods for the Digital Age. London: Sage, 2016Weerakkody, Niranjala. Research Methods for Media and Communication. South Melbourne: Oxford UP, 2009.Whitley, Bernard E., and Mary E. Kite. The Psychology of Prejudice and Discrimination. Belmont: Thomson Wadsworth, 2006.Wimmer, Andreas. “The Making and Unmaking of Ethnic Boundaries: A Multilevel Process Theory.” American Journal of Sociology 113.4 (2008): 970–1022.Wright, Laura. The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror. Georgia: U of Georgia Press, 2015.

There is, in our sense of place, little cognisance of what lies underground. Yet our sense of place, instinctive, unconscious, primeval, has its own underground: the secret spaces which mirror our insides; the world beneath the skin. Our roots lie beneath the ground, with the minerals and the dead. (Hughes 83) The-Home-and-Away-Game Imagine the earth-grounded, “diagrammatological” trajectory of a footballer who as one member of a team is psyching himself up before the start of a game. The siren blasts its trumpet call. The footballer bursts out of the pavilion (where this psyching up has taken place) to engage in the opening bounce or kick of the game. And then: running, leaping, limping after injury, marking, sliding, kicking, and possibly even passing out from concussion. Finally, the elation accompanying the final siren, after which hugs, handshakes and raised fists conclude the actual match on the football oval. This exit from the pavilion, the course the player takes during the game itself, and return to the pavilion, forms a combination of stasis and movement, and a return to exhausted stasis again, that every player engages with regardless of the game code. Examined from a “diagrammatological” perspective, a perspective Rowan Wilken (following in the path of Gilles Deleuze and W. J. T. Mitchell) understands as “a generative process: a ‘metaphor’ or way of thinking — diagrammatic, diagrammatological thinking — which in turn, is linked to poetic thinking” (48), this footballer’s scenario arises out of an aerial perspective that depicts the actual spatial trajectory the player takes during the course of a game. It is a diagram that is digitally encoded via a sensor on the footballer’s body, and being an electronically encoded diagram it can also make available multiple sets of data such as speed, heartbeat, blood pressure, maybe even brain-wave patterns. From this limited point of view there is only one footballer’s playing trajectory to consider; various groupings within the team, the whole team itself, and the diagrammatological depiction of its games with various other teams might also be possible. This singular imagining though is itself an actuality: as a diagram it is encoded as a graphic image by a satellite hovering around the earth with a Global Positioning System (GPS) reading the sensor attached to the footballer which then digitally encodes this diagrammatological trajectory for appraisal later by the player, coach, team and management. In one respect, this practice is another example of a willing self-surveillance critical to explaining the reflexive subject and its attribute of continuous self-improvement. According to Docker, Official Magazine of the Fremantle Football Club, this is a technique the club uses as a part of game/play assessment, a system that can provide a “running map” for each player equipped with such a tracking device during a game. As the Fremantle Club’s Strength and Conditioning Coach Ben Tarbox says of this tactic, “We’re getting a physiological profile that has started to build a really good picture of how individual players react during a game” (21). With a little extra effort (and some sizeable computer processing grunt) this two dimensional linear graphic diagram of a footballer working the football ground could also form the raw material for a three-dimensional animation, maybe a virtual reality game, even a hologram. It could also be used to sideline a non-performing player. Now try another related but different imagining: what if this diagrammatological trajectory could be enlarged a little to include the possibility that this same player’s movements could be mapped out by the idea of home-and-away games; say over the course of a season, maybe even a whole career, for instance? No doubt, a wide range of differing diagrammatological perspectives might suggest themselves. My own particular refinement of this movement/stasis on the footballer’s part suggests my own distinctive comings and goings to and from my own specific piece of home country. And in this incessantly domestic/real world reciprocity, in this diurnally repetitive leaving and coming back to home country, might it be plausible to think of “Home as Capital of the Region”? If, as Walter Benjamin suggests in the prelude to his monumental Arcades Project, “Paris — the Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” could it be that both in and through my comings and goings to and from this selfsame home country, my own burgeoning sense of regionality is constituted in every minute-by-minutiae of lived experience? Could it be that this feeling about home is manifested in my every day-to-night manoeuvre of home-and-away-and-away-and-home-making, of every singular instance of exit, play/engage, and the return home? “Home, Capital of the Region” then examines the idea that my home is that part of the country which is the still-point of eternal return, the bedrock to which I retreat after the daily grind, and the point from which I start out and do it all again the next day. It employs, firstly, this ‘diagrammatological’ perspective to illustrate the point that this stasis/movement across country can make an electronic record of my own psychic self-surveillance and actualisation in-situ. And secondly, the architectural plan of the domestic home (examined through the perspective of critical regionalism) is used as a conduit to illustrate how I am physically embedded in country. Lastly, intermingling these digressive threads is chora, Plato’s notion of embodied place and itself an ancient regional rendering of this eternal return to the beginning, the place where the essential diversity of country decisively enters the soul. Chora: Core of Regionality Kevin Lynch writes that, “Our senses are local, while our experience is regional” (10), a combination that suggests this regional emphasis on home-and-away-making might be a useful frame of reference (simultaneously spatiotemporal, both a visceral and encoded communication) for me to include as a crucial vector in my own life-long learning package. Regionality (as, variously, a sub-generic categorisation and an extension/concentration of nationality, as well as a recently re-emerged friend/antagonist to a global understanding) infuses my world of home with a grounded footing in country, one that is a site of an Eternal Return to the Beginning in the micro-world of the everyday. This is a point John Sallis discusses at length in his analysis of Plato’s Timaeus and its founding notion of regionality: chora. More extended absences away from home-base are of course possible but one’s return to home on most days and for most nights is a given of post/modern, maybe even of ancient everyday experience. Even for the continually shifting nomad, nightfall in some part of the country brings the rest and recreation necessary for the next day’s wanderings. This fundamental question of an Eternal Return to the Beginning arises as a crucial element of the method in Plato’s Timaeus, a seemingly “unstructured” mythic/scientific dialogue about the origins and structure of both the psychically and the physically implaced world. In the Timaeus, “incoherence is especially obvious in the way the natural sequence in which a narrative would usually unfold is interrupted by regressions, corrections, repetitions, and abrupt new beginnings” (Gadamer 160). Right in the middle of the Timaeus, in between its sections on the “Work of Reason” and the “Work of Necessity”, sits chora, both an actual spatial and bodily site where my being intersects with my becoming, and where my lived life criss-crosses the various arts necessary to articulating a recorded version of that life. Every home is a grounded chora-logical timespace harness guiding its occupant’s thoughts, feelings and actions. My own regionally implaced chora (an example of which is the diagrammatological trajectory already outlined above as my various everyday comings and goings, of me acting in and projecting myself into context) could in part be understood as a graphical realisation of the extent of my movements and stationary rests in my own particular timespace trajectory. The shorthand for this process is ‘embedded’. Gregory Ulmer writes of chora that, “While chorography as a term is close to choreography, it duplicates a term that already exists in the discipline of geography, thus establishing a valuable resonance for a rhetoric of invention concerned with the history of ‘place’ in relation to memory” (Heuretics 39, original italics). Chorography is the geographic discipline for the systematic study and analysis of regions. Chora, home, country and regionality thus form an important multi-dimensional zone of interplay in memorialising the game of everyday life. In light of these observations I might even go so far as to suggest that this diagrammatological trajectory (being both digital and GPS originated) is part of the increasingly electrate condition that guides the production of knowledge in any global/regional context. This last point is a contextual connection usefully examined in Alan J. Scott’s Regions and the World Economy: The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition, and Political Order and Michael Storper’s The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. Their analyses explicitly suggest that the symbiosis between globalisation and regionalisation has been gathering pace since at least the end of World War Two and the Bretton Woods agreement. Our emerging understanding of electracy also happens to be Gregory Ulmer’s part-remedy for shifting the ground under the intense debates surrounding il/literacy in the current era (see, in particular, Internet Invention). And, for Tony Bennett, Michael Emmison and John Frow’s analysis of “Australian Everyday Cultures” (“Media Culture and the Home” 57–86), it is within the home that our un.conscious understanding of electronic media is at its most intense, a pattern that emerges in the longer term through receiving telegrams, compiling photo albums, listening to the radio, home- and video-movies, watching the evening news on television, and logging onto the computer in the home-office, media-room or home-studio. These various generalisations (along with this diagrammatological view of my comings and goings to and from the built space of home), all point indiscriminately to a productive confusion surrounding the sedentary and nomadic opposition/conjunction. If natural spaces are constituted in nouns like oceans, forests, plains, grasslands, steppes, deserts, rivers, tidal interstices, farmland etc. (and each categorisation here relies on the others for its existence and demarcation) then built space is often seen as constituting its human sedentary equivalent. For Deleuze and Guatteri (in A Thousand Plateaus, “1227: Treatise on Nomadology — The War Machine”) these natural spaces help instigate a nomadic movement across localities and regions. From a nomadology perspective, these smooth spaces unsettle a scientific, numerical calculation, sometimes even aesthetic demarcation and order. If they are marked at all, it is by heterogenous and differential forces, energised through constantly oscillating intensities. A Thousand Plateaus is careful though not to elevate these smooth nomadic spaces over the more sedentary spaces of culture and power (372–373). Nonetheless, as Edward S. Casey warns, “In their insistence on becoming and movement, however, the authors of A Thousand Plateaus overlook the placial potential of settled dwelling — of […] ‘built places’” (309, original italics). Sedentary, settled dwelling centred on home country may have a crust of easy legibility and order about it but it also formats a locally/regionally specific nomadic quality, a point underscored above in the diagrammatological perspective. The sedentary tendency also emerges once again in relation to home in the architectural drafting of the domestic domicile. The Real Estate Revolution When Captain Cook planted the British flag in the sand at Botany Bay in 1770 and declared the country it spiked as Crown Land and henceforth will come under the ownership of an English sovereign, it was also the moment when white Australia’s current fascination with real estate was conceived. In the wake of this spiking came the intense anxiety over Native Title that surfaced in late twentieth century Australia when claims of Indigenous land grabs would repossess suburban homes. While easily dismissed as hyperbole, a rhetorical gesture intended to arouse this very anxiety, its emergence is nonetheless an indication of the potential for political and psychic unsettling at the heart of the ownership and control of built place, or ‘settled dwelling’ in the Australian context. And here it would be wise to include not just the gridded, architectural quality of home-building and home-making, but also the home as the site of the family romance, another source of unsettling as much as a peaceful calming. Spreading out from the boundaries of the home are the built spaces of fences, bridges, roads, railways, airport terminals (along with their interconnecting pathways), which of course brings us back to the communications infrastructure which have so often followed alongside the development of transport infrastructure. These and other elements represent this conglomerate of built space, possibly the most significant transformation of natural space that humanity has brought about. For the purposes of this meditation though it is the more personal aspect of built space — my home and regional embeddedness, along with their connections into the global electrosphere — that constitutes the primary concern here. For a sedentary, striated space to settle into an unchallenged existence though requires a repression of the highest order, primarily because of the home’s proximity to everyday life, of the latter’s now fading ability to sometimes leave its presuppositions well enough alone. In settled, regionally experienced space, repressions are more difficult to abstract away, they are lived with on a daily basis, which also helps to explain the extra intensity brought to their sometimes-unsettling quality. Inversely, and encased in this globalised electro-spherical ambience, home cannot merely be a place where one dwells within avoiding those presuppositions, I take them with me when I travel and they come back with me from afar. This is a point obliquely reflected in Pico Iyer’s comment that “Australians have so flexible a sense of home, perhaps, that they can make themselves at home anywhere” (185). While our sense of home may well be, according to J. Douglas Porteous, “the territorial core” of our being, when other arrangements of space and knowledge shift it must inevitably do so as well. In these shifts of spatial affiliation (aided and abetted by regionalisation, globalisation and electronic knowledge), the built place of home can no longer be considered exclusively under the illusion of an autonomous sanctuary wholly guaranteed by capitalist property relations, one of the key factors in its attraction. These shifts in the cultural, economic and psychic relation of home to country are important to a sense of local and regional implacement. The “feeling” of autonomy and security involved in home occupation and/or ownership designates a component of this implacement, a point leading to Eric Leed’s comment that, “By the sixteenth century, literacy had become one of the definitive signs — along with the possession of property and a permanent residence — of an independent social status” (53). Globalising and regionalising forces make this feeling of autonomy and security dynamic, shifting the ground of home, work-place practices and citizenship allegiances in the process. Gathering these wide-ranging forces impacting on psychic and built space together is the emergence of critical regionalism as a branch of architectonics, considered here as a theory of domestic architecture. Critical Regionality Critical regionalism emerged out of the collective thinking of Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis (Tropical Architecture; Critical Regionalism), and as these authors themselves acknowledge, was itself deeply influenced by the work of Lewis Mumford during the first part of the twentieth century when he was arguing against the authority of the international style in architecture, a style epitomised by the Bauhaus movement. It is Kenneth Frampton’s essay, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance” that deliberately takes this question of critical regionalism and makes it a part of a domestic architectonic project. In many ways the ideas critical regionalism espouses can themselves be a microcosm of this concomitantly emerging global/regional polis. With public examples of built-form the power of the centre is on display by virtue of a building’s enormous size and frequently high-cultural aesthetic power. This is a fact restated again and again from the ancient world’s agora to Australia’s own political bunker — its Houses of Parliament in Canberra. While Frampton discusses a range of aspects dealing with the universal/implaced axis across his discussion, it is points five and six that deserve attention from a domestically implaced perspective. Under the sub-heading, “Culture Versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light and Tectonic Form” is where he writes that, Here again, one touches in concrete terms this fundamental opposition between universal civilization and autochthonous culture. The bulldozing of an irregular topography into a flat site is clearly a technocratic gesture which aspires to a condition of absolute placelessness, whereas the terracing of the same site to receive the stepped form of a building is an engagement in the act of “cultivating” the site. (26, original italics) The “totally flat datum” that the universalising tendency sometimes presupposes is, within the critical regionalist perspective, an erroneous assumption. The “cultivation” of a site for the design of a building illustrates the point that built space emerges out of an interaction between parallel phenomena as they contrast and/or converge in a particular set of timespace co-ordinates. These are phenomena that could include (but are not limited to) geomorphic data like soil and rock formations, seismic activity, inclination and declension; climatic considerations in the form of wind patterns, temperature variations, rainfall patterns, available light and dark, humidity and the like; the building context in relation to the cardinal points of north, south, east, and west, along with their intermediary positions. There are also architectural considerations in the form of available building materials and personnel to consider. The social, psychological and cultural requirements of the building’s prospective in-dwellers are intermingled with all these phenomena. This is not so much a question of where to place the air conditioning system but the actuality of the way the building itself is placed on its site, or indeed if that site should be built on at all. A critical regionalist building practice, then, is autochthonous to the degree that a full consideration of this wide range of in-situ interactions is taken into consideration in the development of its design plan. And given this autochthonous quality of the critical regionalist project, it also suggests that the architectural design plan itself (especially when it utilised in conjunction with CAD and virtual reality simulations), might be the better model for designing electrate-centred projects rather than writing or even the script. The proliferation of ‘McMansions’ across many Australian suburbs during the 1990s (generally, oversized domestic buildings designed in the abstract with little or no thought to the above mentioned elements, on bulldozed sites, with powerful air-conditioning systems, and no verandas or roof eves to speak of) demonstrates the continuing influence of a universal, centralising dogma in the realm of built place. As summer temperatures start to climb into the 40°C range all these air-conditioners start to hum in unison, which in turn raises the susceptibility of the supporting infrastructure to collapse under the weight of an overbearing electrical load. The McMansion is a clear example of a built form that is envisioned more so in a drafting room, a space where the architect is remote-sensing the locational specificities. In this envisioning (driven more by a direct line-of-sight idiom dominant in “flat datum” and economic considerations rather than architectural or experiential ones), the tactile is subordinated, which is the subject of Frampton’s sixth point: It is symptomatic of the priority given to sight that we find it necessary to remind ourselves that the tactile is an important dimension in the perception of built form. One has in mind a whole range of complementary sensory perceptions which are registered by the labile body: the intensity of light, darkness, heat and cold; the feeling of humidity; the aroma of material; the almost palpable presence of masonry as the body senses it own confinement; the momentum of an induced gait and the relative inertia of the body as it traverses the floor; the echoing resonance of our own footfall. (28) The point here is clear: in its wider recognition of, and the foregrounding of my body’s full range of sensate capacities in relation to both natural and built space, the critical regionalist approach to built form spreads its meaning-making capacities across a broader range of knowledge modalities. This tactility is further elaborated in more thoroughly personal ways by Margaret Morse in her illuminating essay, “Home: Smell, Taste, Posture, Gleam”. Paradoxically, this synaesthetic, syncretic approach to bodily meaning-making in a built place, regional milieu intensely concentrates the site-centred locus of everyday life, while simultaneously, the electronic knowledge that increasingly underpins it expands both my body’s and its region’s knowledge-making possibilities into a global gestalt, sometimes even a cosmological one. It is a paradoxical transformation that makes us look anew at social, cultural and political givens, even objective and empirical understandings, especially as they are articulated through national frames of reference. Domestic built space then is a kind of micro-version of the multi-function polis where work, pleasure, family, rest, public display and privacy intermingle. So in both this reduction and expansion in the constitution of domestic home life, one that increasingly represents the location of the production of knowledge, built place represents a concentration of energy that forces us to re-imagine border-making, order, and the dynamic interplay of nomadic movement and sedentary return, a point that echoes Nicolas Rothwell’s comment that “every exile has in it a homecoming” (80). Albeit, this is a knowledge-making milieu with an expanded range of modalities incorporated and expressed through a wide range of bodily intensities not simply cognitive ones. Much of the ambiguous discontent manifested in McMansion style domiciles across many Western countries might be traced to the fact that their occupants have had little or no say in the way those domiciles have been designed and/or constructed. In Heidegger’s terms, they have not thought deeply enough about “dwelling” in that building, although with the advent of the media room the question of whether a “building” securely borders both “dwelling” and “thinking” is now open to question. As anxieties over border-making at all scales intensifies, the complexities and un/sureties of natural and built space take ever greater hold of the psyche, sometimes through the advance of a “high level of critical self-consciousness”, a process Frampton describes as a “double mediation” of world culture and local conditions (21). Nearly all commentators warn of a nostalgic, romantic or a sentimental regionalism, the sum total of which is aimed at privileging the local/regional and is sometimes utilised as a means of excluding the global or universal, sometimes even the national (Berry 67). Critical regionalism is itself a mediating factor between these dispositions, working its methods and practices through my own psyche into the local, the regional, the national and the global, rejecting and/or accepting elements of these domains, as my own specific context, in its multiplicity, demands it. If the politico-economic and cultural dimensions of this global/regional world have tended to undermine the process of border-making across a range of scales, we can see in domestic forms of built place the intense residue of both their continuing importance and an increased dependency on this electro-mediated world. This is especially apparent in those domiciles whose media rooms (with their satellite dishes, telephone lines, computers, television sets, games consuls, and music stereos) are connecting them to it in virtuality if not in reality. Indeed, the thought emerges (once again keeping in mind Eric Leed’s remark on the literate-configured sense of autonomy that is further enhanced by a separate physical address and residence) that the intense importance attached to domestically orientated built place by globally/regionally orientated peoples will figure as possibly the most viable means via which this sense of autonomy will transfer to electronic forms of knowledge. If, however, this here domestic habitué turns his gaze away from the screen that transports me into this global/regional milieu and I focus my attention on the physicality of the building in which I dwell, I once again stand in the presence of another beginning. This other beginning is framed diagrammatologically by the building’s architectural plans (usually conceived in either an in-situ, autochthonous, or a universal manner), and is a graphical conception that anchors my body in country long after the architects and builders have packed up their tools and left. This is so regardless of whether a home is built, bought, rented or squatted in. Ihab Hassan writes that, “Home is not where one is pushed into the light, but where one gathers it into oneself to become light” (417), an aphorism that might be rephrased as follows: “Home is not where one is pushed into the country, but where one gathers it into oneself to become country.” For the in-and-out-and-around-and-about domestic dweller of the twenty-first century, then, home is where both regional and global forms of country decisively enter the soul via the conduits of the virtuality of digital flows and the reality of architectural footings. Acknowledgements I’m indebted to both David Fosdick and Phil Roe for alerting me to the importance to the Fremantle Dockers Football Club. The research and an original draft of this essay were carried out under the auspices of a PhD scholarship from Central Queensland University, and from whom I would also like to thank Denis Cryle and Geoff Danaher for their advice. References Benjamin, Walter. “Paris — the Capital of the Nineteenth Century.” Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Trans. Quintin Hoare. London: New Left Books, 1973. 155–176. Bennett, Tony, Michael Emmison and John Frow. Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Berry, Wendell. “The Regional Motive.” A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural. San Diego: Harcourt Brace. 63–70. Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis P, 1987. Deleuze, Gilles. “The Diagram.” The Deleuze Reader. Ed. Constantin Boundas. Trans. Constantin Boundas and Jacqueline Code. New York: Columbia UP, 1993. 193–200. Frampton, Kenneth. “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance.” The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-Modern Culture. Ed. Hal Foster. Port Townsend: Bay Press, 1983. 16–30. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Idea and Reality in Plato’s Timaeus.” Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Trans. P. Christopher Smith. New Haven: Yale UP, 1980. 156–193. Hassan, Ihab. “How Australian Is It?” The Best Australian Essays. Ed. Peter Craven. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2000. 405–417. Heidegger, Martin. “Building Dwelling Thinking.” Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. 145–161. Hughes, John. The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays. Sydney: Giramondo, 2004. Iyer, Pico. “Australia 1988: Five Thousand Miles from Anywhere.” Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World. London: Jonathon Cape, 1993. 173–190. “Keeping Track.” Docker, Official Magazine of the Fremantle Football Club. Edition 3, September (2005): 21. Leed, Eric. “‘Voice’ and ‘Print’: Master Symbols in the History of Communication.” The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture. Ed. Kathleen Woodward. Madison, Wisconsin: Coda Press, 1980. 41–61. Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis. “The Suppression and Rethinking of Regionalism and Tropicalism After 1945.” Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of Globalization. Eds. Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre and Bruno Stagno. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Academy, 2001. 14–58. Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis. Critical Regionalism: Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World. New York: Prestel, 2003. Lynch, Kevin. Managing the Sense of a Region. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT P, 1976. Mitchell, W. J. T. “Diagrammatology.” Critical Inquiry 7.3 (1981): 622–633. Morse, Margaret. “Home: Smell, Taste, Posture, Gleam.” Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place. Ed. Hamid Naficy. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. 63–74. Plato. Timaeus and Critias. Trans. Desmond Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1973. Porteous, J. Douglas. “Home: The Territorial Core.” Geographical Review LXVI (1976): 383-390. Rothwell, Nicolas. Wings of the Kite-Hawk: A Journey into the Heart of Australia. Sydney: Pidador, 2003. Sallis, John. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus. Bloomington: Indianapolis UP, 1999. Scott, Allen J. Regions and the World Economy: The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition, and Political Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Storper, Michael. The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. New York: The Guildford Press, 1997. Ulmer, Gregory L. Heuretics: The Logic of Invention. New York: John Hopkins UP, 1994. Ulmer, Gregory. Internet Invention: Literacy into Electracy. Longman: Boston, 2003. Wilken, Rowan. “Diagrammatology.” Illogic of Sense: The Gregory Ulmer Remix. Eds. Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye. Alt-X Press, 2007. 48–60. Available at http://www.altx.com/ebooks/ulmer.html. (Retrieved 12 June 2007)

About half way through Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film Home (2009) the narrator describes the fall of the Rapa Nui, the indigenous people of the Easter Islands. The narrator posits that the Rapa Nui culture collapsed due to extensive environmental degradation brought about by large-scale deforestation. The Rapa Nui cut down their massive native forests to clear spaces for agriculture, to heat their dwellings, to build canoes and, most importantly, to move their enormous rock sculptures—the Moai. The disappearance of their forests led to island-wide soil erosion and the gradual disappearance of arable land. Caught in the vice of overpopulation but with rapidly dwindling basic resources and no trees to build canoes, they were trapped on the island and watched helplessly as their society fell into disarray. The sequence ends with the narrator’s biting remark: “The real mystery of the Easter Islands is not how its strange statues got there, we know now; it's why the Rapa Nui didn't react in time.” In their unrelenting desire for development, the Rapa Nui appear to have overlooked the role the environment plays in maintaining a society. The island’s Moai accompanying the sequence appear as memento mori, a lesson in the mortality of human cultures brought about by their own misguided and short-sighted practices. Arthus-Bertrand’s Home, a film composed almost entirely of aerial photographs, bears witness to present-day environmental degradation and climate change, constructing society as a fragile structure built upon and sustained by the environment. Home is a call to recognise how contemporary practices of post-industrial societies have come to shape the environment and how they may impact the habitability of Earth in the near future. Through reflexivity and a ritualised structure the text invites spectators to look at themselves in a new light and remake their self-image in the wake of global environmental risk by embracing new, alternative core practices based on balance and interconnectedness. Arthus-Bertrand frames climate change not as a burden, but as a moment of profound realisation of the potential for change and humans ability to create a desirable future through hope and our innate capacity for renewal. This article examines how Arthus-Bertrand’s ritualised construction of climate change aims to remake viewers’ perception of present-day environmental degradation and investigates Home’s place in contemporary climate change communication discourse. Climate change, in its capacity to affect us globally, is considered a world risk. The most recent peer-reviewed Synthesis Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change suggests that the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases has increased markedly since human industrialisation in the 18th century. Moreover, human activities, such as fossil fuel burning and agricultural practices, are “very likely” responsible for the resulting increase in temperature rise (IPPC 37). The increased global temperatures and the subsequent changing weather patterns have a direct and profound impact on the physical and biological systems of our planet, including shrinking glaciers, melting permafrost, coastal erosion, and changes in species distribution and reproduction patterns (Rosenzweig et al. 353). Studies of global security assert that these physiological changes are expected to increase the likelihood of humanitarian disasters, food and water supply shortages, and competition for resources thus resulting in a destabilisation of global safety (Boston et al. 1–2). Human behaviour and dominant practices of modernity are now on a path to materially impact the future habitability of our home, Earth. In contemporary post-industrial societies, however, climate change remains an elusive, intangible threat. Here, the Arctic-bound species forced to adapt to milder climates or the inhabitants of low-lying Pacific islands seeking refuge in mainland cities are removed from the everyday experience of the controlled and regulated environments of homes, offices, and shopping malls. Diverse research into the mediated and mediatised nature of the environment suggests that rather than from first-hand experiences and observations, the majority of our knowledge concerning the environment now comes from its representation in the mass media (Hamilton 4; Stamm et al. 220; Cox 2). Consequently the threat of climate change is communicated and constructed through the news media, entertainment and lifestyle programming, and various documentaries and fiction films. It is therefore the construction (the representation of the risk in various discourses) that shapes people’s perception and experience of the phenomenon, and ultimately influences behaviour and instigates social response (Beck 213). By drawing on and negotiating society’s dominant discourses, environmental mediation defines spectators’ perceptions of the human-nature relationship and subsequently their roles and responsibilities in the face of environmental risks. Maxwell Boykoff asserts that contemporary modern society’s mediatised representations of environmental degradation and climate change depict the phenomena as external to society’s primary social and economic concerns (449). Julia Corbett argues that this is partly because environmental protection and sustainable behaviour are often at odds with the dominant social paradigms of consumerism, economic growth, and materialism (175). Similarly, Rowan Howard-Williams suggests that most media texts, especially news, do not emphasise the link between social practices, such as consumerist behaviour, and their environmental consequences because they contradict dominant social paradigms (41). The demands contemporary post-industrial societies make on the environment to sustain economic growth, consumer culture, and citizens’ comfortable lives in air-conditioned homes and offices are often left unarticulated. While the media coverage of environmental risks may indeed have contributed to “critical misperceptions, misleading debates, and divergent understandings” (Boykoff 450) climate change possesses innate characteristics that amplify its perception in present-day post-industrial societies as a distant and impersonal threat. Climate change is characterised by temporal and spatial de-localisation. The gradual increase in global temperature and its physical and biological consequences are much less prominent than seasonal changes and hence difficult to observe on human time-scales. Moreover, while research points to the increased probability of extreme climatic events such as droughts, wild fires, and changes in weather patterns (IPCC 48), they take place over a wide range of geographical locations and no single event can be ultimately said to be the result of climate change (Maibach and Roser-Renouf 145). In addition to these observational obstacles, political partisanship, vested interests in the current status quo, and general resistance to profound change all play a part in keeping us one step removed from the phenomenon of climate change. The distant and impersonal nature of climate change coupled with the “uncertainty over consequences, diverse and multiple engaged interests, conflicting knowledge claims, and high stakes” (Lorenzoni et al. 65) often result in repression, rejection, and denial, removing the individual’s responsibility to act. Research suggests that, due to its unique observational obstacles in contemporary post-industrial societies, climate change is considered a psychologically distant event (Pawlik 559), one that is not personally salient due to the “perceived distance and remoteness [...] from one’s everyday experience” (O’Neill and Nicholson-Cole 370). In an examination of the barriers to behaviour change in the face of psychologically distant events, Robert Gifford argues that changing individuals’ perceptions of the issue-domain is one of the challenges of countering environmental inertia—the lack of initiative for environmentally sustainable social action (5). To challenge the status quo a radically different construction of the environment and the human-nature relationship is required to transform our perception of global environmental risks and ultimately result in environmentally consequential social action. Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s Home is a ritualised construction of contemporary environmental degradation and climate change which takes spectators on a rite of passage to a newfound understanding of the human-nature relationship. Transformation through re-imagining individuals’ roles, responsibilities, and practices is an intrinsic quality of rituals. A ritual charts a subjects path from one state of consciousness to the next, resulting in a meaningful change of attitudes (Deflem 8). Through a lifelong study of African rituals British cultural ethnographer Victor Turner refined his concept of rituals in a modern social context. Turner observed that rituals conform to a three-phased processural form (The Ritual Process 13–14). First, in the separation stage, the subjects are selected and removed from their fixed position in the social structure. Second, they enter an in-between and ambiguous liminal stage, characterised by a “partial or complete separation of the subject from everyday existence” (Deflem 8). Finally, imbued with a new perspective of the outside world borne out of the experience of reflexivity, liminality, and a cathartic cleansing, subjects are reintegrated into the social reality in a new, stable state. The three distinct stages make the ritual an emotionally charged, highly personal experience that “demarcates the passage from one phase to another in the individual’s life-cycle” (Turner, “Symbols” 488) and actively shapes human attitudes and behaviour. Adhering to the three-staged processural form of the ritual, Arthus-Bertrand guides spectators towards a newfound understanding of their roles and responsibilities in creating a desirable future. In the first stage—the separation—aerial photography of Home alienates viewers from their anthropocentric perspectives of the outside world. This establishes Earth as a body, and unearths spectators’ guilt and shame in relation to contemporary world risks. Aerial photography strips landscapes of their conventional qualities of horizon, scale, and human reference. As fine art photographer Emmet Gowin observes, “when one really sees an awesome, vast place, our sense of wholeness is reorganised [...] and the body seems always to diminish” (qtd. in Reynolds 4). Confronted with a seemingly infinite sublime landscape from above, the spectator’s “body diminishes” as they witness Earth’s body gradually taking shape. Home’s rushing rivers of Indonesia are akin to blood flowing through the veins and the Siberian permafrost seems like the texture of skin in extreme close-up. Arthus-Bertrand establishes a geocentric embodiment to force spectators to perceive and experience the environmental degradation brought about by the dominant social practices of contemporary post-industrial modernity. The film-maker visualises the maltreatment of the environment through suggested abuse of the Earth’s body. Images of industrial agricultural practices in the United States appear to leave scratches and scars on the landscape, and as a ship crosses the Arctic ice sheets of the Northwest Passage the boat glides like the surgeon’s knife cutting through the uppermost layer of the skin. But the deep blue water that’s revealed in the wake of the craft suggests a flesh and body now devoid of life, a suffering Earth in the wake of global climatic change. Arthus-Bertrand’s images become the sublime evidence of human intervention in the environment and the reflection of present-day industrialisation materially altering the face of Earth. The film-maker exploits spectators’ geocentric perspective and sensibility to prompt reflexivity, provide revelations about the self, and unearth the forgotten shame and guilt in having inadvertently caused excessive environmental degradation. Following the sequences establishing Earth as the body of the text Arthus-Bertrand returns spectators to their everyday “natural” environment—the city. Having witnessed and endured the pain and suffering of Earth, spectators now gaze at the skyscrapers standing bold and tall in the cityscape with disillusionment. The pinnacles of modern urban development become symbols of arrogance and exploitation: structures forced upon the landscape. Moreover, the images of contemporary cityscapes in Home serve as triggers for ritual reflexivity, allowing the spectator to “perceive the self [...] as a distanced ‘other’ and hence achieve a partial ‘self-transcendence’” (Beck, Comments 491). Arthus-Bertrand’s aerial photographs of Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo fold these distinct urban environments into one uniform fusion of glass, metal, and concrete devoid of life. The uniformity of these cultural landscapes prompts spectators to add the missing element: the human. Suddenly, the homes and offices of desolate cityscapes are populated by none other than us, looking at ourselves from a unique vantage point. The geocentric sensibility the film-maker invoked with the images of the suffering Earth now prompt a revelation about the self as spectators see their everyday urban environments in a new light. Their homes and offices become blemishes on the face of the Earth: its inhabitants, including the spectators themselves, complicit in the excessive mistreatment of the planet. The second stage of the ritual allows Arthus-Bertrand to challenge dominant social paradigms of present day post-industrial societies and introduce new, alternative moral directives to govern our habits and attitudes. Following the separation, ritual subjects enter an in-between, threshold stage, one unencumbered by the spatial, temporal, and social boundaries of everyday existence. Turner posits that a subjects passage through this liminal stage is necessary to attain psychic maturation and successful transition to a new, stable state at the end of the ritual (The Ritual Process 97). While this “betwixt and between” (Turner, The Ritual Process 95) state may be a fleeting moment of transition, it makes for a “lived experience [that] transforms human beings cognitively, emotionally, and morally.” (Horvath et al. 3) Through a change of perceptions liminality paves the way toward meaningful social action. Home places spectators in a state of liminality to contrast geocentric and anthropocentric views. Arthus-Bertrand contrasts natural and human-made environments in terms of diversity. The narrator’s description of the “miracle of life” is followed by images of trees seemingly defying gravity, snow-covered summits among mountain ranges, and a whale in the ocean. Grandeur and variety appear to be inherent qualities of biodiversity on Earth, qualities contrasted with images of the endless, uniform rectangular greenhouses of Almeria, Spain. This contrast emphasises the loss of variety in human achievements and the monotony mass-production brings to the landscape. With the image of a fire burning atop a factory chimney, Arthus-Bertrand critiques the change of pace and distortion of time inherent in anthropocentric views, and specifically in contemporary modernity. Here, the flames appear to instantly eat away at resources that have taken millions of years to form, bringing anthropocentric and geocentric temporality into sharp contrast. A sequence showing a night time metropolis underscores this distinction. The glittering cityscape is lit by hundreds of lights in skyscrapers in an effort, it appears, to mimic and surpass daylight and thus upturn the natural rhythm of life. As the narrator remarks, in our present-day environments, “days are now the pale reflections of nights.” Arthus-Bertrand also uses ritual liminality to mark the present as a transitory, threshold moment in human civilisation. The film-maker contrasts the spectre of our past with possible visions of the future to mark the moment of now as a time when humanity is on the threshold of two distinct states of mind. The narrator’s descriptions of contemporary post-industrial society’s reliance on non-renewable resources and lack of environmentally sustainable agricultural practices condemn the past and warn viewers of the consequences of continuing such practices into the future. Exploring the liminal present Arthus-Bertrand proposes distinctive futurescapes for humankind. On the one hand, the narrator’s description of California’s “concentration camp style cattle farming” suggests that humankind will live in a future that feeds from the past, falling back on frames of horrors and past mistakes. On the other hand, the example of Costa Rica, a nation that abolished its military and dedicated the budget to environmental conservation, is recognition of our ability to re-imagine our future in the face of global risk. Home introduces myths to imbue liminality with the alternative dominant social paradigm of ecology. By calling upon deep-seated structures myths “touch the heart of society’s emotional, spiritual and intellectual consciousness” (Killingsworth and Palmer 176) and help us understand and come to terms with complex social, economic, and scientific phenomena. With the capacity to “pattern thought, beliefs and practices,” (Maier 166) myths are ideal tools in communicating ritual liminality and challenging contemporary post-industrial society’s dominant social paradigms. The opening sequence of Home, where the crescent Earth is slowly revealed in the darkness of space, is an allusion to creation: the genesis myth. Accompanied only by a gentle hum our home emerges in brilliant blue, white, and green-brown encompassing most of the screen. It is as if darkness and chaos disintegrated and order, life, and the elements were created right before our eyes. Akin to the Earthrise image taken by the astronauts of Apollo 8, Home’s opening sequence underscores the notion that our home is a unique spot in the blackness of space and is defined and circumscribed by the elements. With the opening sequence Arthus-Bertrand wishes to impart the message of interdependence and reliance on elements—core concepts of ecology. Balance, another key theme in ecology, is introduced with an allusion to the Icarus myth in a sequence depicting Dubai. The story of Icarus’s fall from the sky after flying too close to the sun is a symbolic retelling of hubris—a violent pride and arrogance punishable by nemesis—destruction, which ultimately restores balance by forcing the individual back within the limits transgressed (Littleton 712). In Arthus-Bertrand’s portrayal of Dubai, the camera slowly tilts upwards on the Burj Khalifa tower, the tallest human-made structure ever built. The construction works on the tower explicitly frame humans against the bright blue sky in their attempt to reach ever further, transgressing their limitations much like the ill-fated Icarus. Arthus-Bertrand warns that contemporary modernity does not strive for balance or moderation, and with climate change we may have brought our nemesis upon ourselves. By suggesting new dominant paradigms and providing a critique of current maxims, Home’s retelling of myths ultimately sees spectators through to the final stage of the ritual. The last phase in the rite of passage “celebrates and commemorates transcendent powers,” (Deflem 8) marking subjects’ rebirth to a new status and distinctive perception of the outside world. It is at this stage that Arthus-Bertrand resolves the emotional distress uncovered in the separation phase. The film-maker uses humanity’s innate capacity for creation and renewal as a cathartic cleansing aimed at reconciling spectators’ guilt and shame in having inadvertently exacerbated global environmental degradation. Arthus-Bertrand identifies renewable resources as the key to redeeming technology, human intervention in the landscape, and finally humanity itself. Until now, the film-maker pictured modernity and technology, evidenced in his portrayal of Dubai, as synonymous with excess and disrespect for the interconnectedness and balance of elements on Earth. The final sequence shows a very different face of technology. Here, we see a mechanical sea-snake generating electricity by riding the waves off the coast of Scotland and solar panels turning towards the sun in the Sahara desert. Technology’s redemption is evidenced in its ability to imitate nature—a move towards geocentric consciousness (a lesson learned from the ritual’s liminal stage). Moreover, these human-made structures, unlike the skyscrapers earlier in the film, appear a lot less invasive in the landscape and speak of moderation and union with nature. With the above examples Arthus-Bertrand suggests that humanity can shed the greed that drove it to dig deeper and deeper into the Earth to acquire non-renewable resources such as oil and coal, what the narrator describes as “treasures buried deep.” The incorporation of principles of ecology, such as balance and interconnectedness, into humanity’s behaviour ushers in reconciliation and ritual cleansing in Home. Following the description of the move toward renewable resources, the narrator reveals that “worldwide four children out of five attend school, never has learning been given to so many human beings” marking education, innovation, and creativity as the true inexhaustible resources on Earth. Lastly, the description of Antarctica in Home is the essence of Arthus-Bertrand’s argument for our innate capacity to create, not simply exploit and destroy. Here, the narrator describes the continent as possessing “immense natural resources that no country can claim for itself, a natural reserve devoted to peace and science, a treaty signed by 49 nations has made it a treasure shared by all humanity.” Innovation appears to fuel humankind’s transcendence to a state where it is capable of compassion, unification, sharing, and finally creating treasures. With these examples Arthus-Bertrand suggests that humanity has an innate capacity for creative energy that awaits authentic expression and can turn humankind from destroyer to creator. In recent years various risk communication texts have explicitly addressed climate change, endeavouring to instigate environmentally consequential social action. Home breaks discursive ground among them through its ritualistic construction which seeks to transform spectators’ perception, and in turn roles and responsibilities, in the face of global environmental risks. Unlike recent climate change media texts such as An Inconvenient Truth (2006), The 11th Hour (2007), The Age of Stupid (2009), Carbon Nation (2010) and Earth: The Operator’s Manual (2011), Home eludes simple genre classification. On the threshold of photography and film, documentary and fiction, Arthus-Bertrand’s work is best classified as an advocacy film promoting public debate and engagement with a universal concern—the state of the environment. The film’s website, available in multiple languages, contains educational material, resources to organise public screenings, and a link to GoodPlanet.info: a website dedicated to environmentalism, including legal tools and initiatives to take action. The film-maker’s approach to using Home as a basis for education and raising awareness corresponds to Antonio Lopez’s critique of contemporary mass-media communications of global risks. Lopez rebukes traditional forms of mediatised communication that place emphasis on the imparting of knowledge and instead calls for a participatory, discussion-driven, organic media approach, akin to a communion or a ritual (106). Moreover, while texts often place a great emphasis on the messenger, for instance Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth, Leonardo DiCaprio in The 11th Hour, or geologist Dr. Richard Alley in Earth: The Operator’s Manual, Home’s messenger remains unseen—the narrator is only identified at the very end of the film among the credits. The film-maker’s decision to forego a central human character helps dissociate the message from the personality of the messenger which aids in establishing and maintaining the geocentric sensibility of the text. Finally, the ritual’s invocation and cathartic cleansing of emotional distress enables Home to at once acknowledge our environmentally destructive past habits and point to a hopeful, environmentally sustainable future. While The Age of Stupid mostly focuses on humanity’s present and past failures to respond to an imminent environmental catastrophe, Carbon Nation, with the tagline “A climate change solutions movie that doesn’t even care if you believe in climate change,” only explores the potential future business opportunities in turning towards renewable resources and environmentally sustainable practices. The three-phased processural form of the ritual allows for a balance of backward and forward-looking, establishing the possibility of change and renewal in the face of world risk. The ritual is a transformative experience. As Turner states, rituals “interrupt the flow of social life and force a group to take cognizance of its behaviour in relation to its own values, and even question at times the value of those values” (“Dramatic Ritual” 82). Home, a ritualised media text, is an invitation to look at our world, its dominant social paradigms, and the key element within that world—ourselves—with new eyes. It makes explicit contemporary post-industrial society’s dependence on the environment, highlights our impact on Earth, and reveals our complicity in bringing about a contemporary world risk. The ritual structure and the self-reflexivity allow Arthus-Bertrand to transform climate change into a personally salient issue. This bestows upon the spectator the responsibility to act and to reconcile the spectre of the past with the vision of the future.Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. Angi Buettner whose support, guidance, and supervision has been invaluable in preparing this article. References Beck, Brenda E. “Comments on the Distancing of Emotion in Ritual by Thomas J. Scheff.” Current Anthropology 18.3 (1977): 490. Beck, Ulrich. “Risk Society Revisited: Theory, Politics and Research Programmes.” The Risk Society and Beyond: Critical Issues for Social Theory. Ed. Barbara Adam, Ulrich Beck, and Joost Van Loon. London: Sage, 2005. 211–28. Boston, Jonathan., Philip Nel, and Marjolein Righarts. “Introduction.” Climate Change and Security: Planning for the Future. Wellington: Victoria U of Wellington Institute of Policy Studies, 2009. Boykoff, Maxwell T. “We Speak for the Trees: Media Reporting on the Environment.” Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34 (2009): 431–57. Corbett, Julia B. Communicating Nature: How we Create and Understand Environmental Messages. Washington, DC: Island P, 2006. Cox, Robert. Environmental Communication and the Public Sphere. London: Sage, 2010. Deflem, Mathieu. “Ritual, Anti-Structure and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processural Symbolic Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30.1 (1991): 1–25. Gifford, Robert. “Psychology’s Essential Role in Alleviating the Impacts of Climate Change.” Canadian Psychology 49.4 (2008): 273–80. Hamilton, Maxwell John. “Introduction.” Media and the Environment. Eds. Craig L. LaMay, Everette E. Dennis. Washington: Island P, 1991. 3–16. Horvath, Agnes., Bjørn Thomassen, and Harald Wydra. “Introduction: Liminality and Cultures of Change.” International Political Anthropology 2.1 (2009): 3–4. Howard-Williams, Rowan. “Consumers, Crazies and Killer Whales: The Environment on New Zealand Television.” International Communications Gazette 73.1–2 (2011): 27–43. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Climate Change Synthesis Report. (2007). 23 March 2012 ‹http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr.pdf› Killingsworth, M. J., and Jacqueliene S. Palmer. “Silent Spring and Science Fiction: An Essay in the History and Rhetoric of Narrative.” And No Birds Sing: Rhetorical Analyses of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Ed. Craig Waddell. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois UP, 2000. 174–204. Littleton, C. Scott. Gods, Goddesses and Mythology. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2005. Lorenzoni, Irene, Mavis Jones, and John R. Turnpenny. “Climate Change, Human Genetics, and Post-normality in the UK.” Futures 39.1 (2007): 65–82. Lopez, Antonio. “Defusing the Cannon/Canon: An Organic Media Approach to Environmental Communication.” Environmental Communication 4.1 (2010): 99–108. Maier, Daniela Carmen. “Communicating Business Greening and Greenwashing in Global Media: A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of CNN's Greenwashing Video.” International Communications Gazette 73.1–2 (2011): 165–77. Milfront, Taciano L. “Global Warming, Climate Change and Human Psychology.” Psychological Approaches to Sustainability: Current Trends in Theory, Research and Practice. Eds. Victor Corral-Verdugo, Cirilo H. Garcia-Cadena and Martha Frias-Armenta. New York: Nova Science Publishers, 2010. 20–42. O’Neill, Saffron, and Sophie Nicholson-Cole. “Fear Won’t Do It: Promoting Positive Engagement with Climate Change through Visual and Iconic Representations.” Science Communication 30.3 (2009): 355–79. Pawlik, Kurt. “The Psychology of Global Environmental Change: Some Basic Data and an Agenda for Cooperative International Research.” International Journal of Psychology 26.5 (1991): 547–63. Reynolds, Jock., ed. Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth: Aerial Photographs. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2002. Rosenzweig, Cynthia, David Karoly, Marta Vicarelli, Peter Neofotis, Qigang Wu, Gino Casassa, Annette Menzel, Terry L. Root, Nicole Estrella, Bernard Seguin, Piotr Tryjanowski, Chunzhen Liu, Samuel Rawlins, and Anton Imeson. “Attributing Physical and Biological Impacts to Anthropogenic Climate Change.” Nature 453.7193 (2008): 353–58. Roser-Renouf, Connie, and Edward W. Maibach. “Communicating Climate Change.” Encyclopaedia of Science and Technology Communication. Ed. Susanna Hornig Priest. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage. 2010. 141–47. Stamm, Keith R., Fiona Clark, and Paula R. Eblacas. “Mass Communication and the Public Understanding of Environmental Problems: The Case of Global Warming.” Public Understanding of Science 9 (2000): 219–37. Turner, Victor. “Dramatic Ritual – Ritual Drama: Performative and Reflexive Anthropology.” The Kenyon Review, New Series 1.3 (1979): 80–93. —-. “Symbols in African Ritual.” Perspectives in Cultural Anthropology. Ed. Herbert A. Applebaum. Albany: State U of New York P, 1987. 488–501. —-. The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, 2008.