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The thesis begins with an introduction, followed by six short stories. The stories that follow span three or four regions of the American landscape and three or four decades of the twentieth century. What drives each story is the isolation of both narrator and main character (when these are not the same) from the world of the story. In each story, there is either a sense of wanting to belong or an urge to escape, or both. The paradox--also the writer's paradox--is that if one belongs, one has no need to escape; if one escapes, one can never belong.

Thesis advisor: Laura Tanner / In "Everyday Speech" Maurice Blanchot eloquently articulates the long held and often rehearsed notion that the everyday eludes representation. Yet, in recent years, literary and cultural studies scholars have begun to explore the limitations of this conception. Monotonous Feeling contributes to this burgeoning conversation by examining three Modern and Contemporary novels that take the everyday's resistance to representation not at a cue for aesthetic transformation but for formal innovation. It argues that Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and Marilynne Robinson's Home, which each define the everyday as a mode of taken-for-granted or distracted attention, use formal techniques to make manifest the monotonous attentions of the everyday in order to make us feel what in the formal and affective limitations of our aesthetic approaches we cannot know. In arousing and making use of feelings that we so often regard as signals of a fractured meaning making process, these novels invite, even push, us to consider the value of everyday felt states that might structure our narratives. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English.

Comprendre les processus par lesquels les activités humaines influent sur la diversité écologique, à des échelles spatiales et temporelles diverses, est une priorité en biologie de la conservation. La niche écologique constitue à cette fin une interface conceptuelle pertinente. Ma thèse traite de l'influence de la structure et des variations de cette interface, et de leur propension à affecter notre interprétation des conséquences des modifications des paysages, des habitats et du climat sur les communautés biotiques. A partir du modèle de l'avifaune commune, pour lequel de vastes bases de données permettent une quantification de la niche multivariée et multi-échelle, je développe un argumentaire en trois volets. Le premier propose qu'au-delà de la multiplicité des axes de la niche, leurs relations et leurs structures permettent d'inférer des processus qui conduisent à la ségrégation des espèces communes le long de gradients d'habitats. Deuxièmement, croiser la niche climatique et la niche d'habitat révèle des interactions entre des sources de vulnérabilité qui semblent de prime abord opérer à des échelles différentes. Enfin, la largeur de la niche d'habitat est non seulement une cause, mais aussi une conséquence de la réponse des espèces aux variations de leur environnement. J'explore les conséquences de ces trois résultats principaux sur notre compréhension des processus qui sous-tendent la diversité taxonomique et fonctionnelle des communautés. Je propose en conclusion de dépasser la vision classique de la niche comme un ensemble de filtres aux effets spatialement et temporellement hiérarchisés, pour prendre explicitement en compte les interactions entre ces filtres et leurs variations dans l'explication et la prédiction des effets écologiques des changements globaux. / Deciphering the processes by which human activities influence the diversity of ecological systems, at various temporal and spatial scales, is at the foreground of research in conservation biology. The ecological niche appears in that respect as a relevant conceptual interface. My work addresses the implications of the structure and variations of this interface for our interpretation of the consequences of changes in landscapes, habitats and climatic conditions on biotic communities. I examine this issue through the model of European common birds, for which large-scale data bases allow quantifying the niche in a multivariate and multiscale way. My reasoning holds with three main results. First, beyond the multiplicity of niche axes, exploring their relations and structures allow inferences on the processes that drive the segregation of species along environmental gradients. Second, crossing habitat and climatic niches reveal interactions between sources of vulnerability which seem at a first glance to operate at distinct scales. Last, the breadth of the habitat niche is not only a cause, but also a consequence of species' responses to environmental variations. I explore the consequences of these three major results on our understanding of processes that sustain the taxonomic and functional diversity of biotic communities. I suggest that, beyond the traditional view of the niche as a network of nested filters, accounting explicitly for interactions between these filters and their variations would sensibly improve our ability to explain and predict the ecological effects of global changes.

'I believe that works of landscape architecture are more than designed ecosystems, more than strategies for open-ended processes. They are cultural products with distinct forms and experiences that evoke attitudes and feelings through space, sequence and form.' 'Elizabeth Meyer The challenge that beauty is a superficial concern in landscape design has been examined by Elizabeth Meyer in her manifesto 'Sustaining beauty. The performance of appearance'. It is a hopeful manifesto that aims to persuade people about the idea that beauty is an important element in sustainable design. For Meyer, beauty is a secret mechanism which alters consciousness, that involves a social and cultural awareness. The main implication of this mechanism is a transformation that happens to people as they experience beauty: they shift from an ego-centric to a bio-centric perspective, as Meyer explains: 'A beautiful landscape works on our psyche, affording the chance to ponder on a world outside ourselves. Through this experience, we are decentered, restored, renewed and reconnected to the biophysical world. The haptic, somatic experience of beauty can inculcate environmental values.' Combining Meyer's assertions with philosopher Arthur Danto's idea of finding beauty in unexpected places, to look anew at the urban landscape, can beauty be found in urban agriculture? The type of beauty Meyer describes is not that of appearance. It's the beauty of experience. Authors that Meyer cites are helpful to understand this definition of beauty. Wendy Steiner explains that 'Beauty is an unstable property because it is not a property at all. It is the name of a particular interaction between two beings, a 'self' and an 'Other': 'I find an Other beautiful'. This act of discovery has profound implications. [']' It is also a dynamic experience. In that sense, Steiner goes on to explain that there is a decentering that occurs when one experiences beauty: the person is taken out of an ego-centric perspective into a more bio-centric one. This thesis presents a four part examination. Part one consists of presenting the question 'Can beauty be found in urban agriculture?', by explaining how this question was motivated by the literature review of Meyer and other authors relevant to the understanding of beauty. It introduces the site of the farmers market as a place of discovery of beauty in everyday landscapes. There will also be a presentation of research in definitions of beauty and a literature review in everyday landscapes and urban agriculture. Part two explains the methodology used for this study, including the use of film as an important means of investigation, revealing aspects of landscape including narrations, movement, time, action, and storytelling, that contribute to an experience of beauty. Part three contains case studies of films. Part four revisits the site and the concept of beauty, explaining what was learned from the studies with film. The selected site for the investigation is the farmers market in downtown Blacksburg, VA. Farmers markets, community gardens and other urban everyday spaces that involved urban agriculture had been subjects of interest throughout my research. The farmers market is an ideal setting because it gathers many elements together, such as: the various types of local produce that the farmers are selling or sharing, local arts and crafts, food produced with local ingredients, music and performance presentations, the people, their families, pets and kids who are visiting the market, various possible interactions by being at the market. So many elements are gathered in the Farmers Market because of the relationship of the rural supporting the urban, and the urban supporting the rural. The town benefits from having access to produce from local farmers, while they benefit from the support of the community for their business. However, the landscape of the farmers market supports more than the rural-urban relationship: it is a community space, a place for many forms of exchange and encounters, one can find connections with animals and people, it has aspects of a park, and it also supports local artists and performers. Film became a central tool for this investigation to capture and document inherent aspects of the landscape of the farmer's market, interactions between people and those aspects, how the space performs and most importantly to reveal beauty. Beauty in the landscape involves action, narratives, attitude, feelings, images, sensory experiences, movement and time, all dynamic elements. At the farmer's market, all these combine in complex ways to constitute an experience of beauty. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Cognitive functioning, particularly executive functioning, is a strong predictor of everyday action impairments in schizophrenia. However, it is unclear if remediating cognitive deficits can lead to meaningful gains in adaptive functioning. Approaches that attempt to improve everyday action performance through bypassing or compensating for cognitive deficits are promising ways to address functional impairments. This study examined whether standardized environmental interventions can compensate for cognitive difficulties and improve action performance in schizophrenia. Forty two individuals were administered two versions of the Naturalistic Action Test (NAT)--a standard version (ST-NAT), and a user-centered version (UC-NAT) that incorporated interventions aimed at streamlining action performance. Individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated enhanced performance on the UC-NAT, demonstrating the beneficial effects of environmental interventions on everyday action. Results indicated that the interventions likely exerted their effect through compensating for global cognitive dysfunction. Additionally, the NAT's reliability and validity for schizophrenia populations, as well as the UC-NAT's utility for addressing the cognitive impairments of a variety of neurological populations were examined. / Psychology

“Pattern Language” is a term popularized by Christopher Alexander and his coauthors of the book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein in the late 1970’s. Though intended to enable every citizen to design and construct their own home, pattern language never quite caught up with those in the field of architecture, mostly because of its lack of flexibility. The core idea of Alexander’s pattern language was to arm architects, designers, and the common people with a tool that would empower them to make informed decisions related to designing places that would comply with their needs and wants. What architecture needs the most today is the ability to heal and invigorate. I believe that contemporary architecture lacks such places that enable occupants to connect and communicate with what is within and what is without. A number of studies have proven that universally sacred (a majority of which are religious in function) places are charged with energies that could contribute towards this process. The energies, also referred to as “patterns,” are the energies unique to a place that make it special and sacred (not just in the religious context but also in the secular context). This thesis is an attempt to derive a new pattern language for the creation of sacred “secular” places like our homes and work places which draw from the pattern lists that have been proposed in four separate instances by authors including Christopher Alexander and Phillip Tabb. This new pattern list is aimed at providing architects and designers with a tool for creating secular places with an element of sacrality without having to taking on a religious meaning.

Ce travail de doctorat s'attache à montrer comment le quotidien, notion dont la naissance est moderne, s'invente et se pense comme objet conceptuel à partir des travaux d'Henri Lefebvre el plus tard de Michel de Certeau. L'investigation du quotidien s'effectue à la croisée de l'art et des sciences humaines et sociales et fait de la question, paradoxale, d'une vie quotidienne créative un enjeu théorique et politique pour la pensée critique comme pour les pratiques artistiques des années 1960 à 1980. En expliquant comment le quotidien, d'objet conceptuel, devient un projet, la thèse éclaire les pratiques non-art de Robert Filliou, d'Allan Kaprow et des artistes Fluxus. C'est dans les écrits d'artistes 'lut' se lit leur geste paradoxal d'affirmation et de négation de l'art qui invite à inscrire les pratiques créatives dans la vit' quotidienne, plutôt que de faire entrer celles-ci au musée. Il s'agit de mettre en évidence ces démarches qui se détournent des institutions artistiques pour investir le quotidien comme le lieu de l'émancipation. La thèse se penche dans le même temps sur l'étude de pratiques d'écriture qui relèvent de ce projet, en expliquant comme Perec et Spoerri mettent en place des configurations discursives permettant de faire l'inventaire poétique d'un quotidien partageable. L'anecdote enfin, dont use Kaprow, interroge les pratiques quotidiennes par leur mise en récit, dans une visée épistémique qui distingue les poïétiques du quotidien des processus d'esthétisation de l'ordinaire par l'art. / Designed as an interdisciplinary study of artistic and theoretical sources, this work addresses the construct of the everyday [quotidien], a key notion for modernity, specifically in Henri Lefebvre’s and later Michel de Certeau's writings from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The dissertation argues that the investigation or the everyday, which led to its conceptualization, is done at the crossroads of social sciences and art. It brings about the paradoxical question of a creative life, which is a theoretical and political concern for critical thinking and for the period's artistic practices, By explaining how the everyday, once a conceptual notion, becomes a project, the work sheds light on the non-art practices of Allan Kaprow, Robert Filliou and Fluxus. It contends that the everyday is paired with the notion of non-art, to which these artists resort to describe their own work. ln their writings and practices, they invite to inscribe creative practices in evervday life, rather than place them within the institutions of the art world, This thesis also draws on an analvsis or the writing or the everyday, by explaining how Georges Perec and Daniel Spoerri elaborate discursive practices which allow them to create a poetic inventory of a collective memory. Finally, the anecdote, of which Allan Kaprow makes use, questions the practices or the everyday by turning them into narratives. These sources raise a philosophical question pertaining to the epistemical value of art and literature that distinguishes the poietics or the everyday from processes that aestheticize the ordinary.

This study aims to define an architecture of opportunity within the context of everyday literacies. In the adaptation of an existing building, holding anonymity within the Pretorius Street skyline and the information overload, an architectural literacy should develop which promotes the continuation of the narrative of the city. Focussing on the re-use of space to connect with existing movement patterns, the investigation explores various forms of legibility to improve the everyday experience and awareness to the adaptation. Responding to the established nature of the city fabric, the investigation reveals the depths of a city block: exposing programmes, concealed spaces and layers of meaning which contribute to the notion of city as possibility. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Architecture / unrestricted

In this essay I will describe my working method as an artist with a political perspective, talking about what political art can be and how it can have an effect. I also write about the development of my work, from the interest in the independent nature person to the contrasting role as a citizen. I contextualize my artistic method by raising some questions that I find interesting when dealing with the public in relation to my method; I am recording sound in the city. / Erla Silfá Þorgrímsdóttir