Access to abstract permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only. / Department of Telecommunications

The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is one of the main components of atmospheric circulation variability within the middle and high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere and largely affects winter weather in northeastern United States. This study examined the most recent decadal trend of the NAO as well as its influence on snowfall totals and storm track variability in the northeast U.S. over the previous 50-year period. Previous research has indicated greater snowfall totals in the Northeast during NAO negative phases due to repeated polar outbreaks. Nonetheless, past research has also shown connections between the NAO positive phase and active winter seasons in this region. This study provides insight on how both positive and negative NAO phases can produce significant snowfall in the Northeast. Statistical and graphical analysis were completed to assess the relationship between the NAO and seasonal snowfall (NDJFM) from 1961-2010 for stations within the Northeast (Virginia to Maine). In addition, two case studies of recent winter events with differing NAO phases were evaluated to provide insight on how both NAO phases can produce significant snowfall in the Northeast. The statistical analysis revealed inverse relationships between the NAO negative phase and seasonal snowfall. The composite analysis indicated an average positive NAO pattern from 1961-2010, yet the NAO negative years produced higher frequency of snowfall in the Northeast. The case studies highlighted variations in storm track and snowfall distribution of the two winter events in differing phases. This study shows that snowfall can occur in particular regions of the Northeast regardless of the NAO phase which has important implications for forecasters. This research also provides the necessary information to complete the most recent decadal trend of the NAO and determine its average pattern. The update of this record will assist climatologists and weather forecasters in predicting future northeast U.S. winter storms. / Department of Geography

There is no abstract available for this dissertation. / Department of Educational Studies

Scenario House, a gallery based installation, is comprised of a room constructed as a ???family room??? within a domestic space, a television with a looped video work and a sound componant played through a 5.1 sound system. The paper is intended to give my work context in relation to the processes leading up to its completion. This is achieved through clarification of the basis for the installation including previous socio-political discourses within my art practice. It then focuses on ways that the installation Scenario House is based on gun practice facilities such as the Valhalla Shooting Club. Further it gives an explanation of the actual production, in context with other art practices. It was found that distinctions between ???war as a game??? and the actual event are being lost within ???simulation revenge scenarios??? where the borders distinguishing gaming violence, television violence and revenge scenarios are increasingly indefinable. War can then be viewed a spectacle where the actual event is lost in a simplified simulation. Scenario House as installation allows audience immersion through sound spatialisation and physical devices. Sound is achieved by design of a 5.1 system played through a domestic home theatre system. The physical design incorporates the dual aspect of a gun shooting club and a lounge room. Further a film loop is shown on the television monitor as part of the domestic space ??? it is non-narrative and semi-documentary in style. The film loop represents the mediation of the representation of fear where there is an exclusion of ???the other??? from the social body. When considering this installation it is important to note that politics and art need not be considered as representing two separate and permanent realities. Conversely there is a need to distance politicised art production from any direct political campaign work in so far as the notion of a campaign constitutes a fixed and inflexible space for intellectual and cultural production. Finally this paper expresses the need to maintain a critical openness to media cultures that dominate political discourse. Art practices such as those of Martha Rosler, Haacke and Paul McCarthy are presented as effective strategies for this form of production.

Most studies in environmental politics have traditionally examined three broad areas: the degradation of the environment; the regulatory regimes governing the environment; or environmental activism within the affluent North. This thesis provides an alternative perspective, exploring environmental activism in the less affluent South. In particular, while human rights and social justice perspectives have historically been largely absent from many environmental movements of the North, this thesis argues that, due to precarious living conditions and authoritarian governance, these issues are of primary importance for environmentalists in the South. As a result this thesis contends that most environmental movements in the South are part of a growing global justice movement and that important cultural diversities within this movement can result in novel forms of resistance and environmental governance. The focus here is on the emancipatory actors within these movements in the South who challenge existing power structures within society. Likewise, by adopting a critical perspective, this thesis argues that large business interests pursue energy projects in the South in the name of energy security and large scale industrial development that are often inappropriate for local development and security needs. To test these hypotheses, four case studies were undertaken that examine transnational gas pipeline and large dam projects at various stages of their development which originate in either Burma (Myanmar) or Thailand. Empirical research, primarily in the form of interviews, undertaken in the countries hosting the various energy projects demonstrated that although environmental activists in the South were assisted by transnational activist networks there were also important local factors that impacted on the emancipatory philosophies, strategies and tactics of many activists in this region. These strategies have achieved some success, with environmental impact assessment (EIA) processes in Thailand now providing a potential opening for the political engagement of communities. Nevertheless, this thesis finds that the power of corporate interests in the international political economy often poses insurmountable barriers for activists to achieve both their short and long term aims. The findings suggest that despite the efforts of activists, local indigenous and ethnic minority communities continue to bear the brunt of the social and environmental costs of transnational energy projects in the South while receiving few of the benefits. Rather than safeguarding these communities from deprivation, these projects often exacerbate existing social tensions and conflicts, resulting in increased community insecurity. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1474397 / Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, 2009

In 1990, German literary critics agreed that the end of the Cold War should mark the end of politically committed post-war literature. The political caesura prompted a debate about the future of German literature during which the concept of 'readability' evolved as a contested issue. It was championed in particular by the author Matthias Politycki and the publishers Uwe Wittstock and Martin Hielscher. Ever since, 'readability' has remained a benchmark for authors and critics alike in the battle for value and success. The thesis will establish a theoretical basis for 'readability' that draws on narratology, the Aristotelian concept of 'mimesis', classical rhetoric, and the poetics of contemporary authors who explicitly engage with 'readability'. Discussion will centre on the novel since this genre has been the focus of debate ever since the novel gained prominence with the rise of the reading middle classes in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the historical role of 'readability' will demonstrate that the debate as it manifested itself around 1990 developed out of a specifically German tradition, in which authors and critics alike viewed it as potentially in conflict with true art. In 1990, German literary critics agreed that the end of the Cold War should mark the end of politically committed post-war literature. The political caesura prompted a debate about the future of German literature during which the concept of 'readability' evolved as a contested issue. It was championed in particular by the author Matthias Politycki and the publishers Uwe Wittstock and Martin Hielscher. Ever since, 'readability' has remained a benchmark for authors and critics alike in the battle for value and success. The thesis will establish a theoretical basis for 'readability' that draws on narratology, the Aristotelian concept of 'mimesis', classical rhetoric, and the poetics of contemporary authors who explicitly engage with 'readability'. Discussion will centre on the novel since this genre has been the focus of debate ever since the novel gained prominence with the rise of the reading middle classes in the eighteenth century. An analysis of the historical role of 'readability' will demonstrate that the debate as it manifested itself around 1990 developed out of a specifically German tradition, in which authors and critics alike viewed it as potentially in conflict with true art. The thesis will demonstrate that 'readability' is key to understanding the debates about German literature in an era of globalisation when readers are more attracted to works by foreign authors than to works by German ones. It will examine how writers such as Helmut Krausser, Daniel Kehlmann, and Thomas Glavinic have exploited the opportunities of the changed parameters by writing and promoting 'readable' books. It will further explore to what extent 'readability' has opened up new avenues even for authors like Felicitas Hoppe and Ulrike Draesner, who distrust the quest for 'readability'. The thesis will conclude with a reflection on the prospects for 'readability' in the current literary landscape in Germany.

The introduction of civic education to Serbian primary and secondary schools in 2001 marked a beginning of an all-encompassing education reform that followed the country's 2000 'democratic revolution'. In the context of a socio-political shift from various authoritarian regimes, including the 1945-1990 state socialism and 1990-2000 nationalist authoritarianism, the policy set the tone for future changes that were designed to support democratisation of Serbia, and assist its return to Europe (Birzea, 1994). A part of the broader programme for democratisation of education and education for democracy in Serbia, the policy enabled various discursive elements constitutive of the desired post-2000 ideology to enter the national educational discourse. This thesis explored its formation. I approached the policy as a way to explore the beginning of Serbia's first proper post-communist reform, and analyse the actors and ideologies that had shaped it. I used Ball's notion of policy-as-discourse and conceptualised civic education policy as a part of a discursive project of creating a 'new Serbia'. Using elite interviews and documentary analysis, I explored its formation and development, its place in the wider reform, and its relation to religious education, (re)introduced at the same time. Combining the elements of Fairclough's critical discourse analysis, and elements of Bourdieu's social theory, I looked into the meaning and function of civic education as a part of the ideological construction of the future Serbia, as well as capital used to position Serbia favourably in the global field in the early days of its educational transition. Within the wider transition literature, I attempted to establish a comparison between Serbia's 'belated' post-communist transition, and educational changes happening across formerly communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe in early-to-mid 1990s. I also explored the applicability and usefulness of the recent theoretical developments in the transition literature that go against the conceptualisation of post-communist transitions as modernising projects, and argue instead for a focus on unique transformations that happen as a result of a meeting between globally dominant and desirable discursive elements and local contexts. I conclude that the discursive elements of the Serbian civic education policy were used as capital by Serbian policy actors to ensure their better positioning not only in the global, but also in the national field, as suggested by differences in the ideological construction of the policy discourse in different fields. This prompts a concern with the concept of various 'policyspeaks', as recently explored by Halász (2012) and Steiner-Khamsi (2014). I argue that as a part of a discursive project intended to construct post-2000 Serbia, civic education policy worked more towards eradicating the undesirable ideology of violent nationalist authoritarianism, than towards eradicating the ideology of communist authoritarianism. In this sense, the specificity of the context proved important for the shape and meaning of a post-communist reform and ideologies that it was designed to propagate. However, instead of rejecting modernist concepts of transition and democratisation, I advise a future focus on careful unpacking of their context-dependent ideological-discursive constructions.

This study of early years services in India explores the take-up of the government ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services Scheme) and RGNCS (Rajiv Gandhi National Crèche Scheme), and the factors affecting their uptake by working mothers in a Delhi slum. Policy cannot assess programme outcomes effectively without understanding how services are implemented. Existing literature indicates that programme impact is related to programme take-up, with non-take-up being a complex phenomenon affected by factors operating at multiple levels of the policy process. The study makes original contributions by examining user perspectives on early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the Indian context; in being the first to research any aspect of the RGNCS; and in utilizing Critical Realism as the underlying philosophical, theoretical and methodological paradigm for studying programme uptake. It poses five research questions that examine mothers' childcare arrangements and needs/expectations from services, their take-up of government programmes and component services, and the combination of factors affecting uptake. Study findings are based on surveys with 200 working mothers and 37 children's centre workers, and interviews with 15 policy experts. Findings reveal childcare arrangements and needs/expectations to vary by family structure, child's age, and mother's age and employment. ICDS uptake is found to be higher (54.3% of all mothers), than RGNCS (18.6%). An explanatory framework for analysing take-up reveals that low take-up results from a combination of multiple factors, most significantly programme characteristics for the ICDS, and participant characteristics for the RGNCS. Two theoretical frameworks frame this analysis - Wolman's (1981) determinants of programme success and failure, and the 'barriers and bridges' to programme uptake. Critical policy analysis further identifies the effects of the policy meaning-making processes, and the role of local 'street-level bureaucrats' in take-up. Both programmes display 'conflicted policy success' vis-à-vis take-up when categorised using McConnell's (2010) criteria for programme 'success' and 'failure'. Policy implications include strategies for increasing programme uptake, and a policy focus upon service users and women in the informal economy, recognition of the dual role of ECEC, and the importance of evidence-creation for interactive governance.

In spite of widespread critiques about the neoliberalisation of higher education and its production of citizenship in relation to the market, transformation of students into profit-maximising individuals, and the vitalisation of a self-enterprising subjectivity, many of these claims remain under-examined with respect to cultural production. The objective of this research is to explore the neoliberal production of middle-class citizenship through the lens of educated non-elite local youth in Singapore. By combining geographical, sociological and anthropological insights about education and youth, I develop a theoretically informed ethnographic case study to examine how this segment of young people reproduce themselves as middle-class citizens. The research is based on eleven months of fieldwork at a local private institute of higher education, where I hanged around, talked to, and observed Singaporean young people between ages 18 and 25 studying for their first degree. The ethnographic materials are written up into four substantive papers, demonstrating the ways in which educated non-elite Singaporean youth in private higher education engage with state disseminated ideas around neoliberal accumulation and human capital formation. I argue that these students draw on class-based sensibilities and feelings to produce vibrant forms of normativities, subjectivities, and politics that pose a challenge to dominant assumptions of a "hollowed out" citizenship under neoliberalism. The research makes two overall interventions in geographic and social scientific writings about neoliberal restructuring of higher education and its implications for youth citizenship. First, it cautions against a straightforward claim that neoliberal technologies of control have extended market values into citizenship subjectivity and, with it, the erosion of progressive political projects. Second, it provides a much-needed analysis of middle-class citizenship formation among young people caught at the losing end of a diversifying educational landscape.

The focus of this thesis is contemporary Polish playwriting after Poland's accession to the European Union in 2004. From a broad reading of plays by many new writers, four playwrights were selected for study on the basis of prominence and artistic merit: Pawel Demirski, Dorota Maslowska, Malgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and Przemys law Wojcieszek. Their plays were studied as texts and in performance, and twelve main plays became the focus of closer analysis. The thesis identifies and examines three major concurrent themes in the works of these playwrights. Remembering versus forgetting the past is discussed through the lens of selected aspects of memory studies, including Nora's lieux de mémoire, Hirsch's postmemory and Assman's mnemohistory. The playwrights are shown to share an endorsement of the de-politicisation of collective memory and to advocate a cessation of the passing down of trauma to post-war generations. The human body is highlighted as another concurrent thematic concern and is illuminated by certain tenets of Catholic doctrine as well as Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The playwrights' rejection of the tabooisation of the body is demonstrated and the shared notion of the body as both sentient and unifying is exemplified. Social marginalisation is examined as the final concern, with an emphasis on the notion of the 'other', particularly in relation to socio-economic status, sexuality, and religious beliefs. The plays are shown to support and promote a rejection of the myth of homogeneity in favour of openness to diversity. Major dramatic techniques are then closely examined. It is demonstrated that the plays share traits with Lehmann's theory of postdramatic theatre, including a rejection of Aristotelian unities. Key commonalities are evidenced, particularly comedy, bad language, intertextualities with the outside world, and an engagement with Polish social realities. The playwrights' approach to the spectator as a socio-political being is shown to be of paramount importance.