This international research set out to exemplify the pedagogical practices of 11 teachers from Christchurch/Ōtautahi, New Zealand (Aotearoa) and Saskatoon, Canada. It explores their resistance to the various colonial and neocolonizing constructs central to contemporary mainstream schooling in both cities (due to forces such as neoliberalism). These acts of resistance were the result of contesting ideologies of time, space, curriculum and assessment. The research, therefore, describes some of the pedagogical practises of these teachers. It also considers their narratives about their usage of place-based education (PBE) approaches and their commitment to the adoption of critical pedagogies of place (CPP) to meet the real needs of their students (both Indigenous and non-Indigenous). An interpretive paradigm was employed within a qualitative framework to underpin this research. A case study approach was also adopted and informed by a bricolage methodological framework. Primary and secondary data were collected from a number of storage sites (libraries) in both countries and through a questionnaire, interview and observation of each teacher’s classroom space. The data was analysed by coding key information while drawing out any recurring themes and points of difference. The findings reveal that certain aspects of PBE and CPP are accessible to teachers despite their feelings of being confined in terms of their ability to use time, space, curriculum and assessment within their traditional school institutions. Although their abilities to engage with PBE and CPP were limited, those teachers that had more control over time, space, curriculum and assessment were able to dive deeper into PBE and especially CPP. A key finding of this research was the extent of awareness and engagement that the teachers had in transforming controlled, static, spaces found in the classrooms, communities and natural environments into meaningful places with students. This finding also suggests that teachers with more control over time, space, curriculum and assessment have an easier time in creating this change. The findings also indicate that these teachers first needed to have the courage to challenge traditional systems of schooling, because teachers can become marginalized by other teachers and administrators when seen to be attempting to transform entrenched institutional (schooling) cultures. Flexibility and trust were two of the other recurring themes that emerged from the data collected. Teachers possessing more flexibility (with regards to time, space, curriculum and assessment design procedures) were most able to enact PBE and CPP. They were also the best-positioned participants to create meaningful professional relationships with their students and local community members. Issues of trust were clearly evident in recurring discussions around the increased amount of trust teachers needed to have with students for the students to be able to engage with space and place. There was also an increased amount of trust that school administrators (principals) needed to have in their teachers who were engaging with PBE and CPP. The research participants in this study demonstrated that, in different ways, they were striving to resist the ideologies underpinning traditional mainstream schooling, and that they were able to enact change regardless of the challenges they experienced. Their perseverance to ground their teaching in PBE and CPP approaches testifies to their love of education and their acceptance of it as a legitimate process for change and growth.

This thesis examines an instance of the failure of a parent-led bid for a new local school in Queensland at the end of the last millennium. This parent-led and school-endorsed initiative failed despite a policy climate that appeared actively to encourage such initiatives from government funded school communities. The work shows that the parents of Sunnyvale College, (a pseudonym), were both encouraged by the policy environment and discouraged by the response given to their new schooling initiative, from being full educational partners in the process of the schooling of their children. The unanticipated failure is investigated as a case study of parent engagement set against a background of relationships between government and particular educational stakeholders in that time and place. It examines how these relationships are played out in this context and what the implications of this are for contemporary relationships of this type. Because the approach to the case study is not based on any assumption that the " failure" was the outcome of a pernicious state, the investigation acknowledges the discontinuous nature of such educational relationships and thus, refuses notions of linearity and continuity. The case study approach draws on poststructuralist scholarship, in particular the work of Michel Foucault (1979-84), who is the key theorist informing the investigation. Foucault's theories relating to truth, power and governmentality, are of particular interest and are used as a basis for argument and analysis. The case study is conducted in three key parts. First, the study brings together an overarching framework of interpretive and theoretical bricolage, which works to allow multiple theoretical perspectives and understandings to inform the process of investigation. Second, there is an acknowledgement of the importance of history and also, of historical contingency, in the production of events such as this failure. Thus, there is an historical account of the establishment of schools in Queensland, particularly in the 1990s, and an exploration of the differences in the establishment process across this decade. This exploration is undertaken by working backwards through relevant archival documents and other data in order to highlight the discontinuous nature of such processes. This means that parent/school relationships are historicised, using a macro and micro analysis to understand how such relationships have been produced over time. The case in question is situated within this historicising, allowing for an exploration of its nature and setting, its historical background, the roles of particular individuals, and the processes and procedures that were important in the development of the case. The third part of the study involves re-theorising parent/school relationships in contemporary contexts. The main argument of the case study is that there was a shift in the discursive constitution of schooling that was taking place at the very time that the initiative was undertaken in 1997. It is argued that the school community in question was working out of a set of assumptions about school partnerships, which had already been substantially reinscribed by a new discursive system. This new system reframed " choice" and " community" in terms of the " performative" rather than the " democratic" school. The main arguments and findings in the case study are then used to re-theorise parent/school relationships in post-millennial Queensland, particularly in relation to policy reform. This re-theorising is conducted in the form of a discourse analysis of current federal and state government policy and other types of data, which are relevant to schooling in contemporary contexts. Various interpretive and theoretical perspectives are used in this process of re-theorising, including notions of performativity (Ball, 2003a, 2003b, 2004), responsibilisation (Rose, 1990, 1999, 2000) and pedagogicalisation (Popkewitz, 2003). Such notions are employed to build on the lines of inquiry that develop as a consequence of the use of Foucauldian theory in the earlier part of the study. These concepts are also used to develop new epistemological understanding of parent/school relationships in contemporary contexts. The work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 2001) further assists in the conceptualisation of parent engagement in schooling as a game played on the field of schooling. As a consequence of this re-theorising, it is argued that parent engagement in schooling is a focus of increased attention on the part of educational stakeholders and is increasingly demanded by way of increased levels of responsibilised participation. This trend raises questions about the levels of fatigue and anxiety that could result for parents as a consequence of such demanding levels of performance. Additionally, an argument is presented that " performative" parenting is a prescribed set of activities, not an open invitation to leadership and high-level decision-making. Thus, as previously mentioned, choice is always already framed, as " proper" parents make " informed" choices with regard to their children's schooling. This thesis concludes that " performative" schools offer new and problematic subject positions for " performative" parents, which are inviting more engagement but constraining the type of partnership that is possible between parents and schools.

Au cours de mes travaux de thèse, je me suis penché sur le pendant génétique de l'adaptation. Certes, les mutations sont générées au hasard; mais quelles sont celles que l'évolution retient et pourquoi? Peut-on définir certains principes qui déterminent les chemins génétiques favoris qu'emprunte et ré-emprunte l'évolution ? Ces principes génétiques bornent-ils parfois le jeu des adaptations possibles ? Le substrat génétique qui nourrit la sélection est-il le même lorsqu'il s'agit de l'émergence d'un caractère nouveau ou bien lorsqu'il s'agit de la diversification ou le raffinement d'un caractère existant ?Pour répondre à ces questions, je me suis penché sur des drosophiles à pois noirs. En particulier, des drosophiles du groupe melanogaster, dont un ancêtre s'est paré d'une tache noire sur le bout de l'aile, il y a environ 20 millions d'années. Cette tache s'est transmise de génération en génération, en se modifiant de façon spectaculaire dans certaines lignées.J'ai d'abord tenté de mettre à jour la logique génétique du bricolage qui a fondé l'émergence puis la diversification de cette tache. Ces travaux suggèrent un modèle général dans lequel les deux versants de l'adaptation, émergence et diversification, correspondent à deux bricolages génétiques distincts.Dans un deuxième temps, je me suis concentré sur l'émergence de cette tache. Ce travail en cours a permis de dégager certaines caractéristiques génétiques du module de régulation qui sous-tend le développement de cette tache. Mon travail de thèse contribue, dans son ensemble, à une meilleure compréhension des ressorts génétiques sur lesquels repose l'adaptation. / In my thesis, I studied the genetics of adaptation. Certainly, mutations are randomly generated, yet evolutionary relevant mutations are not randomly distributed; why? Can we define some principles that determine the most favorable genetic paths, in the light of evolution? Would these principles sometimes limit the range of possible adaptations? Are mutations that feed emergence of a new character and diversification or refinement of an existing character the same? To answer these questions, I studied fruit flies with black spots. In particular, fruit flies from the melanogaster group, whose ancestor evolved a black spot on the tip of its wing, about 20 million years ago. This spot has been inherited through generations, and diversified dramatically in some lineages.I first tried to uncover the logic of genetic tinkering underlying the emergence and diversification of the spot. Our results suggest a general model in which the two sides of adaptation, emergence and diversification, correspond to two distinct genetic tinkering.Second, I focused strictly on the emergence of this spot. This ongoing work has identified some general genetic features of the regulatory module underlying the development of this spot.Overall, my thesis contributes to a better understanding of the genetics of adaptation.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-03T12:19:42Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Moises Coppe.pdf: 1122002 bytes, checksum: 165534438513421d79452621549819d8 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-05-15 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The search for Brazilians religious identity upon Darcy Ribeiros view embodies the challenge in which we engage in this work. It is about the awareness of the meaning of being human in the world time and space from the perspective of religion and obscurantism in Darcys narratives. Even though such an investigation may be carried out through sciences multiple paths, we decided to take the one of Sciences of Religion. Based on Darcys writings, we provide new pieces of information in the religious scope, as it happened and still does in Brazil. Notwithstanding his public position as an atheist, the anthropologist provides us with some new intuitions that broaden our views in the domain of Science of Religion. Having not found a framework about religious language in Darcys thought, we established a rapprochement with Paul Ricoeurs hermeneutics philosophy. The notion of narrative identity in Ricoeur was the fundamental methodological element which helped us out with the hermeneutics articulation of intuitions in the religious element in Darcy. Such narrative identity finds in the work of memory and symbol polysemy other ways of interlocution and enrichment of the discussion. Such heuristic articulation, born from our intuition, will enable us to reveal Brazilians religious identity from the hermeneutic aspect. Our task is underlain by Darcys confessions, in the religious historical scenario permeated by the crossings among the various matrixes and the particularly complex present environment in Brazil. For us, Darcy Ribeiros coherent work accounts for the expansion of studies in Science of Religion and suggests Brazilians religious identity as a work in progress. Darcy Ribeiro departs from anthropology but does not limit himself to sheer structuralism; rather, he develops a certain dialectical anthropology in interlocution with philosophy. This study aims to pinpoint Brazilians religious identity in spite of the blindness in the religious weaving marked by radicalism, fundamentalism and conservadorism. To enhance such an identity, we tackled into two metaphors: sixth-spear and bricolage, both aligned with Darcys view. His unusual interpretation and search for Brazilians identity was only possible through Paul Ric urs hermeneutic lenses. Underlain by Paul Ric urs notion of religious identity, we were faced with the foundations which helped us analyze such identity in its limitations and possibilities, matches and dismatches, building process and lack of closure. / A busca pela identidade religiosa dos brasileiros a partir do olhar de Darcy Ribeiro constitui o desafio que empreendemos neste trabalho. Trata-se de perceber o sentido de ser humano no mundo tempo e espaço do ponto de vista do religioso e do obscuro, mediante as narrativas de Darcy. Embora uma investigação como essa pudesse ocorrer pelos múltiplos caminhos das ciências e seus fundamentos, decidimos pela via das Ciências da Religião. A partir dos escritos de Darcy, vamos oferecer informações novas quanto à perspectiva religiosa no Brasil conforme se deu e ainda ocorre. Paradoxalmente, este antropólogo que sempre se afirmou ateu nos oferece algumas novas intuições que ampliam nossas conceituações no domínio das Ciências da Religião. Por não encontrarmos uma sistematização sobre a linguagem religiosa no pensamento de Darcy, buscamos estabelecer uma aproximação com a filosofia hermenêutica de Paul Ric ur. A noção de identidade narrativa, segundo Ricoeur, foi o elemento metodológico fundamental na articulação hermenêutica das intuições sobre o religioso em Darcy. Esta identidade narrativa encontra no trabalho da memória e na polissemia do símbolo outras formas de diálogo e enriquecimento da discussão. A articulação heurística, fruto de nossa intuição, nos permitirá revelar a identidade religiosa dos brasileiros pelo viés hermenêutico. A presente tarefa é efetuada com o olhar nas confissões de Darcy, no panorama histórico-religioso eivado de entrecruzamentos espirituais das diversas matrizes e do ambiente atual, particularmente complexo, existente no Brasil. Para nós, a obra de Darcy Ribeiro contribui de maneira coerente à expansão dos estudos em Ciências da Religião e sugere, de igual modo, a identidade religiosa dos brasileiros em fazimento. Darcy Ribeiro parte da antropologia, mas não se restringe à perspectiva do puro estruturalismo, desenvolvendo uma espécie de antropologia dialética em discussão com a filosofia. Esta pesquisa procura situar também a identidade religiosa dos brasileiros, apesar da cegueira que afeta o tecido religioso, marcado pelo radicalismo, pelo fundamentalismo e o conservadorismo. Para evidenciar melhor essa identidade, utilizamos duas metáforas: sexta lança e bricolagem, ambas alinhadas com o olhar de Darcy. A inusitada interpretação e busca da identidade religiosa dos brasileiros segundo Darcy Ribeiro somente foi possível pelas lentes hermenêuticas oferecidas por Paul Ric ur. Na perspectiva da noção de identidade narrativa, segundo Paul Ric ur, nos deparamos com as bases que nos ajudam a considerar esta identidade religiosa, seus limites e possibilidades, seus encontros e desencontros, seu fazimento e inacabamento.

創業之目的是突破現狀，追求創新，創業家必須擁有資源才能創新產品與服務，但他們卻因資源受限而有志難伸。新創企業如何以拼湊有限資源來翻轉劣勢，是隨創（bricolage）所提倡的主導做法。可是，拼湊資源是透過怎樣的時機，當今文獻卻討論有限，因此，時機辨識成為是當前亟需探索之重點。本研究選取三個原住民族新創企業個案，分析他們的經營歷程、挑戰與如何透過辨識時機進行資源拼湊。本研究發現，原住民族文化是重要的資源，這些在地資源成為識別機會、突破資源稀缺的服務創新關鍵。在學術意涵上，本研究提出三個議題。第一，辨識時機需要觀察資源轉換脈絡；第二，辨識時機需要設定資源使用情境；第三，辨識時機需找出資源調合方式。在實務啟示上，本研究提出辨識時機的各種可能，並歸納多樣的隨創原則。進行隨創時，若能掌握在地文化便可以找出適當時機，讓有限的資源拼湊出無限的創新。 / The objective of entrepreneurship is to seek breakthrough innovation within status quo. Entrepreneurs must obtain resources in order to innovate new products or services. But their aspirations often are frustrated due to resource constraints. The dominant approach to entrepreneurial bricolage is to advise new ventures to turnaround adversities by making-do with resources. But, when could entrepreneurs identify opportunity for tinkering limited resources? This is an inquiry worth further investigation. This research selects three case studies of indigenous start-ups while analyzes their entrepreneurial process and challenges within; and examines how they recognize opportunities in creative resource tinkering. This study found that indigenous culture is a kind of critical local resource, which may trigger opportunity recognition in order to guide resource making-do and achieve service innovation. Theoretically, this study suggests that (1) opportunity recognition must understand the context that is suitable for the transformation of resource quality; (2) opportunity recognition must pay attention to resource deployment in situ; (3) opportunity recognition should identify methods of resource blending. Practically, this study proposes several possibilities of opportunity recognition and summarizes a variety of bricolage principles. When engaging entrepreneurial bricolage, if we could get a grip with local culture, it increases our chance to identify the right moment and allow limited resources to enact unlimited innovation.

The presence of at least two prominent streams of church music within the DRC is evident – this is also true of most other Protestant and Reformed churches. There is tension between the ‘old music’ and the ‘new music’; traditional church music and contemporary church music; the official repertoire of church music and the utilized repertoire of songs. Liturgical singing often includes various free songs (songs outside the official hymnal). Songs from various traditions are cut and pasted or copied and merged into liturgy through a process of bricolage. Within bricolage liturgy there is a growing tendency towards bricolage liturgical singing. A brief overview of the history of church music illustrates the complexities regarding church music. The official song of the temple was often complimented by the ecstatic song of individuals. The more formal and official song of the church often stood in contrast to the song and music that were played and sung in houses and elsewhere. Christian believers in different eras expressed themselves in different forms and genres of music. The Bible does not support a blueprint for church music. There is no Biblical church music, mainly because no ‘melodies’ could be preserved (cf. Mowinckel 2004:9). The latter is further complicated by the culture-bound nature of Biblical music and songs. The Biblical data mostly provides snapshots of instances where God’s people utilized music and singing in their interaction with the Almighty and covenantal God. Certain principles and guidelines for church music could be drawn from these, although the danger of fundamentalism, relativism and subjectivism remains. A study of liturgy illustrates the important role of music and singing within the dialogue of the liturgy. Recent studies emphasize that church music could function as a ritual symbol within a specific cultural or sub-cultural community. As such church music is closely related to the culture (or sub-culture) of a given community and can never be evaluated apart from that culture. Within a postmodern culture, church music will be greatly influenced and coloured by the values and attitudes of postmodernism. The latter have major implications for musical styles, genres, repertoires and the sanctification of church music. Within postmodernism the borders between sacred and secular are not so clear, neither between sacred (liturgical) music and secular music. Within Western culture and postmodernism there is a growing need for an inculturated and an inter-culturated song, expressing the smaller narrative(s) of the local congregation in idioms, language, metaphors and styles true to the local culture. Church music is closely related to the spirituality of the local congregation. The dominant type of spirituality will necessarily have a sound influence on the musical genres, accompaniments, styles and repertoire of the local congregation. The growing phenomenon of popular spirituality has definite implications for church music. At least three circles of spiritualities must find expression in the song of the local congregation, namely an ecumenical spirituality, a denominational spirituality and a congregational spirituality. Where the official song (Liedboek van die Kerk) gives expression to the denominational or Reformed spirituality as well as the meta-narrative, the free song often gives expression to the congregational spirituality as well as the smaller narrative. It is argued that the freely chosen song is an important means of expressing the spirituality of the local congregation (culture). In this sense, it does not threaten the official church song but compliments it. These two could stand in a positive and creative tension. Regarding liturgical singing, the DRC is presently moving from a societas through a phase of communitas to a new societas. It is impossible to predict the outcome of this process. As Burger (1995:31) indicates, a communitas-phase releases a lot of new energy that could be of great value to the church. Church music, as folk music and cultural music, will have to be faithful to the culture and spirituality of God’s people living in the twenty first century within a given context. The age-old tradition must continue hand in hand with a new song. Vos (2009:5) summarizes accurately: “However, each generation of believers must interpret the ancient sources and traditions of the Church anew, within the demands of their time, without being unfaithful to the traditions in which a definitive liturgy exists”. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2011. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Whether on paper, on site or mediating between both, means for reading and writing geometry have been central to architecture: the use of compasses and rulers, strings, pins, stakes or plumb-lines enabled the analysis and reproduction of congruent figures on different surfaces since antiquity, and from the renaissance onwards, the consistent planar representation of three-dimensional shapes by means of projective geometry. Tacitly through practice, or explicitly encoded in classical geometry, the operational syntaxes of drawing instruments, real or imaginary, have determined the geometric literacies regulating the production and instruction of architecture. But making marks on the surfaces of paper, stone or the ground has recently given way to the fundamentally different sequential operations of computers as the material basis of architectural inscription. Practices which have dominated architecture since antiquity make little sense in its current reading and writing systems.  This thesis examines technologies of digital inscription in a search for literacies equivalent to those of drawn geometry. It particularly looks at programming as a form of notation in close correspondence with its material basis as a technology, and its effects on architecture. It includes prototypes and experiments, graphics, algorithms and software, together with their descriptions and theoretical analyses. While the artefacts and texts respond to the different forms, styles, interests and objectives specific to the fields and contexts in which they have originated, their fundamental purpose is always to critique and propose ways of writing and reading architecture through programming, the rationale of the research and practice they stem from. / <p>QC 20171129</p>

La « triple catastrophe » survenue le 11 mars 2011 dans la région du Tōhoku au Japon coïncide avec l’émergence de nouvelles technologies numériques qui ont rendu possible la diffusion en ligne presque immédiate des photographies de l’évènement après leur prise. Un des défis subséquents des artistes professionnels japonais est alors de donner une forme adéquate aux conséquences de ce désastre sans nécessairement contribuer à ce qu’ils perçoivent être un trop plein d’images. Ce mémoire prend la série Exposure (2015 – 2016), une oeuvre réalisée à Tchernobyl par le photographe Obara Kazuma, pour examiner quelques stratégies entreprises par des artistes japonais afin de répondre à ces impératifs. D’emblée, ce mémoire reconstitue les évolutions de la culture visuelle rattachée à la catastrophe de Tchernobyl (1986) jusqu’à l’ouverture officielle du site aux touristes (2011). Les productions photographiques tant des amateurs que des professionnels qui ont visité le lieu sont examinées pour mieux pour comprendre la position que prend Obara dans le champ visuel de Tchernobyl. La théorie du bricolage, telle qu’articulée par Claude Lévi-Strauss et selon laquelle un projet artistique est élaboré à partir des matériaux que possède d’emblée un créateur, jette un éclairage sur le rapport de mutualité établi entre Obara et les parties constitutives d’Exposure. Le second chapitre examine l’aspect fragmentaire de la série et les possibilités de lecture qu’offre ce mode de représentation. La théorie du montage de Walter Benjamin propose que le rapprochement de divers fragments participe à affiner et renouveler l’histoire de Tchernobyl telle qu’elle est actuellement montrée et narrée. Ultimement, le troisième chapitre examine la façon dont Obara rend inaliénable la composante historique de ses images. Exposure est alors analysé à l’angle des théories archéologiques de la spolia, qui démontrent comment Obara rend actuelle la catastrophe de Tchernobyl comme il en reproduit les propriétés et spécificités historiques. / The ‘triple disaster’ that occurred on March 11, 2011 in the Tōhoku region of Japan coincides with the emergence of new digital technologies which allowed an almost immediate online dissemination of photographs of the event after they have been taken. For many professional artists, the challenge is then to give an adequate visual shape to the consequences of the disaster without contributing further to an already massive number of images of the catastrophe. This thesis takes a series made in Chernobyl by photographer Kazuma Obara, Exposure (2015 – 2016) to examine some strategies undertaken by various Japanese artists to meet these imperatives. From the outset, this dissertation reconstructs the visual culture linked to the Chernobyl disaster, from its beginning (1986) to the official opening of the site to tourists (2011). The photographic productions of both amateurs and professionals who have visited the place are examined to better understand the position Obara takes in the visual field of Chernobyl. The theory of bricolage developed by Claude Lévi-Strauss, according to which an artistic project is developed by its creators with the materials they already possess, sheds light on the mutual relationship established between Obara and the constituent parts of Exposure. The second chapter examines the fragmentary aspect of the series and the reading possibilities this mode of representation entails. Walter Benjamin's theory of montage suggests that the bringing together of various fragments helps to refine and renew the history of Chernobyl as it is currently shown and narrated. Ultimately, the third chapter examines how Obara makes inalienable the historical component of his images. Exposure is then analyzed from the angle of archaeological theories of spolia, which demonstrate how Obara makes the Chernobyl disaster contemporary anew as much as it reproduces its historical properties and specificities.

Der Gegenstand der vorliegenden Dissertationsschrift ist eine Geschichte des chemischen Elements Selen von der Vorgeschichte seiner Entdeckung um 1783 bis in die 1920er Jahren. Methodisch folgt die Arbeit Vorschlägen aus den Science and Technology Studies, nicht die menschlichen Akteure ins Zentrum zu stellen, sondern danach zu fragen, in welcher Weise auch Dinge als nicht-menschliche Wesen eine Differenz erzeugen, die ihre reine Objekthaftigkeit zu hinterfragen erlaubt und sie zu Akteuren der Geschichte macht. Ziel der Arbeit war eine Rekontextualisierung der historischen Voraussetzungen, die die unterschiedlichen Ereignisse im Leben des Selens erst möglich gemacht haben. Die Arbeit stützt sich auf eine sehr breite Quellenbasis. Der Untersuchungszeitraum erstreckt sich von ersten Publikationen im erweiterten Kontext der Vorgeschichte der Entdeckung des Selens im Jahr 1783, die Entdeckung der lichtsensitiven Eigenschaften W. Smith 1873 bis in die 1920er Jahre, als der Einsatz der Selenzelle in diversen Erfindungen rund um das Thema der Fernsteuerung und Automatisierung zu einem vorläufigen Ende kommt. Die hier als »Selen – Ein Biographem« vorgestellte Arbeit unternimmt einen Perspektivenwechsel: Das chemische Element Selen ist der Protagonist der Untersuchung. Die Arbeit trägt einen Teil zur medienhistorischen Aufarbeitung der Geschichte des Fernsehens bei, wobei der Fokus auf den Entwicklungen im Bereich der technischen Bildübertragung zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts liegt. Aber auch die Geschichte der Entdeckung des Selens sowie der Einsatz desselben im Kontext der Verlegung des transatlantischen Telegraphenkabels – um nur zwei weitere historische Knoten aufzurufen – müssen fortan in einem anderen Licht betrachtet werden. / The subject of this dissertation is a history of the chemical element selenium from the prehistory of the discovery of selenium around 1783 to the 1920s. Methodically, the work follows proposals from the Science and Technology Studies, not to focus on the human actors, but to ask in which way things as non-human beings also create a difference, which allows to question their pure objecthood and makes them actors of history. The aim of the work was to recontextualize the historical preconditions that made the different events in the life of the selenium possible in the first place. The work is based on a very broad source base. The period of investigation extends from the first publications in the expanded context of the prehistory of the discovery of selenium in 1783, the discovery of the light-sensitive properties of selenium by W. Smith in 1873 up to the 1920s, when the use of the selenium cell in various inventions around the topic of remote control and automation comes to a provisional end. The work presented here as »Selenium – A Biographeme« makes a change of perspective: The chemical element selenium is the protagonist of the investigation. The present work contributes its part to the media-historical analysis of the history of television. The focus is on developments in the field of technical image transmission at the beginning of the 20th century. But also the history of the discovery of selenium, as well as its use in the context of the laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable–to call up only two further historical nodes–must henceforth be viewed in a different light.

This dissertation applies anthropology analysis to study a specie of a tree frog, living in the northern Amazonia, called Kambo. The wax-like substance, which the frog releases upon irritation, is used for its healing potential around the world. A basic conceptual framework is used to analyse the frog from the perspective of modernity, globalisation, and diffusion of cultural dimensions. The dissertation anticipates their influences on multiple parties. The geographical scope of the dissertation is limited on Amazonia and the Czech Republic. Kambo is a host of numerous biochemical interactions; in addition, it is used in socio-material context; in rituals; for gaining, or circulation of experience; or it is part of various techniques of understanding oneself, as described in later works of Michel Foucault. Due to Kambo's alleged participation on creation of human's subjective thinking, the dissertation answers the question on the extent to which Kambo could be responsible, through ethnographic lens. The results show that for those respondents who were experienced Kambo users; using the substance as a potion for treating physiological and mental issues and who were subsequently influenced by New Age movement; Kambo stands as a milestone in their life trajectories. Through the ethnographic research,...