The link between heritage and hospitality dates back hundreds of years. However, there are no firm rules that manage this old relationship. The research tackles the concept of ‘heritage hospitality’ as a new concept; which represents a managed heritage-hospitality link through the application of traditional heritage and traditional hospitality in hotels. This study addresses the relationship between heritage and hospitality at selected hotels in Siwa oasis in Egypt. Relationships between indigenous peoples and hotels, heritage and hospitality, hotels and heritage tourism, the possibility of applying the ‘heritage hospitality’ concept and the present status of heritage application in Siwan hotels were explored to achieve the research goal of providing a balance between commercialization and authenticity in hospitality. Field observations, a questionnaire survey, key informant interviews, and a focus group discussion were conducted in Siwa from October 2, 2010 to October 21, 2010. The present status of heritage application in Siwan hotels has been documented in this study. Although Siwa oasis is rich in both cultural and natural heritage, Siwan hotels utilize only one aspect of the cultural heritage: tangible cultural heritage. Thus, Siwan hotel operators may invest more in quality heritage presentation in order to contribute to the preservation of Siwan heritage and to earn more money. Authenticity is important to the enhancement of the link between heritage and hospitality. However, it is necessary to combine both old and modern practices in a balanced approach. This research contributes to practice and to conceptual and empirical understanding of heritage-hospitality nexus and, hopefully, will inspire more research on balancing authenticity and commercialization in hotels, particularly in developing countries like Egypt.

The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the meaning of authenticity in Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. This is done first by situating the meaning of authenticity within the project as a whole, second through an exegesis of key parts of the text, and third, through an evaluation of certain scholarly commentaries. The ultimate aim is to argue against an interpretation of authenticity that carries an overly subjectivistic-individualistic connotation. The second chapter seeks to provide the necessary context for the meaning of authenticity within the project of Being and Time as a whole. The goal is to make transparent the situation that Heidegger finds himself in when he conceives of the necessity for the concept of authenticity. Towards this end, it is necessary to highlight those commitments to phenomenology and hermeneutics that informs Heidegger's effort. The third chapter first introduces the various characterizations of authenticity that Heidegger offers in Being and Time and the problematic meaning they suggest. Subsequently, the third chapter aims at creating a context for the meaning of those characterizations through an exegesis of the existentials of every existentiell disclosure of Dasein's being-in-the-world. By examining what it means for Dasein to be in the world in general, the goal is to narrow the scope of what authenticity can and cannot mean. The fourth chapter surveys certain commentaries on authenticity that argue in favor of a subjectivistic-individualistic emphasis for the meaning of authenticity. The goal is to isolate the key points in Being and Time that are used in support of these interpretations, and subsequently to use the frameworks created in Chapters II and III to articulate why such commentaries are incorrect. Finally, Chapter IV gestures towards the right meaning of those descriptions of authenticity that carry a subjectivistic-individualistic connotation in order to place them in the right context. The thesis concludes by suggesting that a non subjectivistic-individualistic interpretation fits more holistically with the other social-historical parts of the text, and that a subjectivistic-individualistic interpretation remains within the provenance of the kind of metaphysics that Heidegger wishes to distance himself from.

This study examined the Texas Renaissance Festival as perceived and experienced by (serious) visitors for whom this was a form of regular, repeated and highly meaningful participation. Specifically, the focus was to gain understanding of the notion of serious leisure as defined by Stebbins, in the context of festivals, and to understand the meanings associated with festival participation. Following a qualitative (constructivism paradigm) research frame, the data were collected through participant observation and 37 in-depth interviews for highly committed tourists to the Texas Renaissance Festival. The collected data were analyzed through Grounded Theory techniques specified by Glaser (1978). In regard to the characteristics of participation, the results indicated that their continuous participation in the Texas Renaissance Festival displays qualities of serious leisure: 1) identification; 2) long-term career; 3) unique ethos; 4) significant personal effort; 5) perseverance; and 6) durable personal benefits. As they become more seriously involved in the festival participation, they tend to be a part of a well-integrated subculture of which prominent values include personal freedom, hedonism, and anti-materialism. The experiences constructed through the serious festival participation were reminiscent of tourism existential authenticity specified by Wang (1999) as two levels: intrapersonal authenticity (gaining one’s true self) and interpersonal authenticity (gaining true human relationship). A search of such authentic experiences at the festival seems to be partly driven by the perceived alienation in everyday life. When these aspects were examined from an interpretive and meaning-based approach, attending the festival in a serious manner is not just a simple matter of escaping from the reality (e.g., alienation) of everyday life, but is an active quest for an “alternative” to their lives at home as many indicated. Thus, the serious participation in a tourism activity such as the Texas Renaissance Festival could be best understood as a dynamic process of attaining existential state of Being in response to diverse sociocultural conditions. Several significant theoretical propositions were made based on the results derived from this study. Additionally, marketing and management implications associated with staging tourism events and festivals were discussed.

Martin Heidegger was not only one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century but also a supporter of and a contributor to one of the most discriminatory ideologies of the recent past. Thus, "the Heidegger's case" gives us philosophers an opportunity to work on discrimination from a philosophical perspective. My aim in this essay is to question the relationship between freedom and discrimination via Heidegger's philosophy. I will show that what bridges the gap between Heidegger's philosophy and a discriminatory ideology such as the National Socialist ideology is Heidegger's conceptualization of freedom with the aid of a monolithic understanding of history--one that refuses to acknowledge the plurality and heterogeneity in the socio-historical existence of human beings. Accordingly, I will claim that the Heideggerian freedom depends on the social, if not literal, murder of the marginalized segments of a given society. However, I will refuse to conclude that Heidegger's philosophy is a Nazi philosophy and that it should never be appropriated as long as we want to purify our thoughts from discriminatory ideas. Rather, I will re-appropriate Heidegger, against Heidegger, to read and interpret Michel Foucault's and Judith Butler's philosophies. My aim here is to construct a social ontology that may justify anti-discriminatory policies. More specifically, through my Heideggerian readings of Foucault and Butler, I will argue that one's freedom is dependent on the cultural resuscitation of socially, and sometimes literally, murdered racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, and sectarian/confessional minorities.

By examining the range of stances that white characters in Hollywood films are represented as taking in relation to blackness, this dissertation considers the question of how language becomes ideologically linked to categories of race through linguistic representations. Through an analysis of 59 films (1979-2008) from multiple genres, this study focuses on the linguistic practices of the characters that contribute to larger semiotic practices performed by discernible social types. The first linguistic practice, crossing, plays on the stereotype of the inauthentic, white male, who tries to gain coolness through linguistic representations of African Americans. The second practice, passing, conjures images of blackface because in addition to using linguistic representations of African Americans, the passing characters darken their skin. By demonstrating complex links between language and social meanings such as ideologies about authenticity, identity and racial and gendered stereotypes, these films use linguistic features along with other visual and physical semiotic displays to both construct and comment on black and white authenticity. Specifically, crossing was found to comment on disseminated images of the young, white male as lacking a particular type of masculinity and sexuality and overcompensating for them by imitating widely circulating images of the hypermasculine, hypersexual and hyperphysical black male. In addition, it commented on the tendency to read this linguistic practice as inauthentic. Therefore, the social meaning of the white linguistic representations of African Americans used when crossing was found to be related to authenticity or who had the right to use ethnically-marked linguistic features. On the other hand, passing was argued to communicate the ideologies that some whites may have of African Americans, particularly African American men. The linguistic resources utilized in these performances are not used to form identity, but for humor and to distance the character from being read as traditional minstrelsy. By highlighting some of the linguistic strategies that speakers in Hollywood use to (re)produce not only indexical links between linguistic forms and racialized stereotypes but also ideologies about racial authenticity, this dissertation provides an empirical study of some of the semiotic practices that involve the re-indexicalization of minority vernacular resources by members of the majority. / text

Authenticity in agriculture, food and resource markets has been an ongoing policy challenge to regulators and food industries, and a major concern to consumers given the complex nature of global food supply chains and the increasing spate of market fraud reports across the world. In a bid to boost their economic return, some firms may engage in illicit activities that comprise authenticity including: adulteration, substitution of substandard products, unapproved enhancements of food products, false and misleading quality claims. Such actions, often times, create negative reputation externalities for other agri-food firms in the sector, and may also result in trade conflicts and border rejections; while consumers incur transaction (search) costs in verifying product attributes due to quality uncertainty. This dissertation focuses on collective reputation and contributes to an understanding of authenticity issues in agri-food and resource markets. The analysis examines the role of industry-led quality assurance systems and evolving technologies in enhancing authenticity signals and reducing information asymmetry in the context of market fraud and collective reputation within food and resource supply chains. This dissertation consists of three papers. Paper 1 examines technological solutions to authenticity issues in the context of international trade. The paper explores the role of an emerging authenticity technology, International Barcode of Life (IBOL) in strengthening the enforcement of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of wild fauna and flora (CITES). The focus of the analysis is CITES restrictions on commercial trade in the endangered species tree of Brazilian rosewood (Dalbergia nigra). The first paper provides an overview of the applications of the IBOL technology in species identification to date. A graphical partial equilibrium trade model examines three scenarios consisting of adoption of IBOL authenticity technology by a single major importing country, multilateral adoption, and adoption by the exporting country. The scenarios suggest that a threat of multilateral testing for the authenticity of imported rosewood could eliminate cross border commercial trade in the endangered species. Upstream testing and certification of authenticity in the exporting country could increase importers’ confidence and the demand for legally harvested rosewood. The results suggest that technological solutions to authenticity issues in international markets have the potential to reduce quality uncertainty and could act as a complement to regulatory enforcement under CITES. Paper 2 explores the industry-led Vintners Quality Alliance (VQA) quality assurance system for Canadian wines to examine how an industry seeks to signal authenticity assurances to protect its collective reputation. Hedonic and Probit models are estimated using data on wine attributes sourced from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO). Hedonic models examine whether VQA certification, versus other collective and individual reputation signals (region, winery), elicits a price premium. The Probit analysis examines factors that determine a winery’s decision to seek VQA certification for a specific wine. The results suggest that while a number of attributes including VQA certification, percentage alcohol content, sweetness (sugar level), volume of wine supplied and vintage, have a significant influence on the price of wine, VQA adds a premium beyond other signals of reputation (winery and region). The magnitude of the effect of individual and collective reputation on the price of wine differs for the different types/colours of wine. The Probit model results suggest that wineries that supply large volumes of wine (more than 1000 cases) in Ontario and produce icewine and non-blended wines have a higher tendency of seeking VQA status. The results imply that VQA could be used as a shorthand for quality, while premium and reputation driven by authenticity in the wine industry could serve as an incentive for other agri-food industries to establish similar quality assurance systems. Paper 3 examines the incidence of mislabelling and substitution in fish markets using supply, demand and welfare analysis. The paper focuses on incentives for the private sector (retailers) or a third party to adopt IBOL technology to protect their reputation and for supply chain monitoring. The feasibility of IBOL technology for a typical retail store in Canada is assessed using a simple simulation analysis. The analysis suggests that the costs of switching to the IBOL system, the number of retailers already using the technology and their market shares are likely to influence a retailer’s adoption of the technology. The ease of catching cheaters along the fish supply chain through third party monitoring is expected to depend on the accuracy of the technology in detecting fraud, the sampling frequency (rate) and rate of species substitution; while enforcement of legal penalties and other costs would serve as a disincentive to cheat as these costs negatively affect expected profit. The simulation analysis suggests that presently IBOL technology appears to be feasible for a typical retail store in Canada if testing is done in an external facility, but may not be feasible if fixed and other costs associated with the IBOL system are considered. The paper suggests that reducing the size of the technology to a hand-held tool and coordination of small scale retailers are potential ways to make the technology affordable and expand its use.

The concept of authenticity has been central to the human capacity to communicate for over two millennia, and it continues to enjoy wide usage throughout popular culture today. “Authenticity” typically conveys a sense that one has reached solid bedrock, the unchanging foundation of an object or inner-self that transcends the context of the moment. In this sense, the search or struggle for authenticity is a quest for VIP access to the ineffable “real” that language can only inadequately gesture toward. This study investigates the contemporary struggle for authenticity, or what can be described as the “rhetoric of authenticity,” by exploring the way authenticity is negotiated, constructed, and contested through various symbolic resources. More specifically, it focuses on how authenticity is negotiated in the U.S. blues community, a complex cultural site where the struggle over authenticity is especially salient and materializes in a variety of complex ways. Drawing on a number of philosophical perspectives and critical theories, the study employs the methods of rhetorical criticism and oral history as it seeks to answer three central questions: First, what are the major rhetorical dimensions of authenticity? Second, what does rhetorical analysis reveal about the relationship between authenticity and its various signifiers? And third, what does our desire for authenticity teach us about ourselves as symbol-using creatures? The study employs a case study approach that moves inductively in order to discover the larger rhetorical dimensions of authenticity. The case studies examine the relationship between authenticity and the blues’ larger historical trajectory; between aesthetics and authenticity in the oral history narratives of professional blues musicians in Austin, Texas, especially as they converge along a style/substance binary; between identity and authenticity in the editorial policy of Living Blues magazine; and finally, between imitation and authenticity in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. The study concludes by exploring how authenticity is contextual, aesthetic, ideological, and political, and frames a rhetorical theory of authenticity that can be applied widely throughout popular culture. / text

A Game of Confidence: Literary Dialect, Linguistics, and Authenticity builds a bridge between literary-critical and linguistic approaches to representations of nonstandard speech in literature. Important scholarship both in linguistics and in literary criticism has sought to develop rigorous inquiry into deviations from standard written language to represent features of nonstandard spoken language in literature. I argue that neither field, however, has fully embraced the idea that, by definition, 'literary dialect' necessitates an interdisciplinary approach. Furthermore, neither has successfully integrated the other's very different theories and methods. As a result, 'literary dialect' provides an exciting opportunity for new scholarship connecting recent developments in literary history, sociolinguistics, and digital humanities. The goals of my project are two-fold: First, to analyze within their own cultural and historical contexts previous attempts by authors, readers, and scholars to fix the supposedly empirical accuracy of literary dialect representations; second, to model what I take to be an empirically more valid use of linguistics for analyzing literary artists' representations of nonstandard speech. My work provides a necessary intervention for literary dialect criticism, particularly for the many arguments that have sought a degree of objectivity for assertions about the artistic or socio-political merits of a dialect text based on vague linguistic generalizations. My dissertation's primary focus is on the period that has served historically as the locus classicus for scholarship on American dialect literature: The second half of the nineteenth century when local colorists, regionalists, and realists used 'real' American voices as the foundation for a realistic American literature. By analyzing the production and historical reception of literary dialect texts from this period I show how assessments of 'authenticity' have been a constant in the critical response to these texts for nearly a century and a half. Having underscored the critical problems inherent in linking artistic and political evaluations of dialect texts to the 'authenticity' of their literary dialects, I then draw on recent developments in the digital humanities, computational linguistics, and sociolinguistics to employ a methodology for generating and interpreting literary-linguistic data on literary dialects. / text

This essay looks at cultural commoditization by indigenous people in Third World countries in response to tourism. The common assumption is that commoditization invalidates a culture and that it somehow becomes inauthentic. I show that even though the Indians of the Peruvian highlands sell their “Indianess” for tourists to photograph, the real commoditization takes place by mestizos who appropriate Indian culture: their dress, rituals, handicrafts. The Indians and mestizos are both trying to maximize their share of tourism revenue, little of which actually gets to the highlands. Neither culture, however, becomes inauthentic in the process. While the meanings of cultural products may be altered over time, no culture is static and fixed in time: new meanings are relevant within the context of contemporary society.

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