In my thesis I engage selected texts of Jacques Derrida, David Wills, and Jean-Luc Nancy in order to draw on specific motifs that are relevant for a thinking of sight and blindness. The motifs on which I elaborate are immediacy, prosthesis, and extension respectively. In consecutive chapters, based on close readings of these selected texts and the development of these motifs in them, my study elaborates on the relevance of the work of these three thinkers for a thinking of sight and blindness that does not conform to the hierarchical dualisms of Western metaphysics. Following this, I engage three texts by selected theorists from the large and growing field of disability studies—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Lennard Davis, David T. Mitchell, and Susan L. Snyder—in order to make the case that disability studies has not yet challenged its own metaphysical assumptions.

A model of education known as the Expanded Core Curriculum (ECC) (Lohmeier 2005) proposes that, for blind students, the inability to learn visually severely curtails learning opportunities. A program of instruction must teach skills and knowledge traditionally learned by visual observation. The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between the ECC and social capital (Lareau and Weininger 2003) and to discover whether visually impaired individuals who have received an education based on the majority of the elements from the ECC demonstrate greater ability to acquire social capital than visually impaired individuals who have received a more traditional education based on the core curriculum. The data collected established the subjects’ level of social capital; the nature of their education (Core vs. ECC); the link if any between social capital and their educational experience; and the degree of social integration including upward career mobility. Findings included: • Those subjects who reported involvement in non-work related activities perceived a positive employment relationship, indicating high social capital. • Education based on the ECC was limited, as demonstrated by subjects’ limited career development. • Subjects made good use of tacit knowledge, even though the education received was not based on the ECC. • All subjects described their social relationships at work in functional rather than sociological terms. Subjects who described limited social activities with co-workers away from the workplace appeared to have limited social lives generally. The study’s conclusions are that formal instruction in soft skills and knowledge of the organization’s culture, as well as orientation to workplace culture, are critical to the development of a high-quality employment relationship. Initiatives to compensate for the inability of visually impaired persons to acquire this information coincidentally would help others who experience challenges in their efforts to acquire social capital

In my thesis I engage selected texts of Jacques Derrida, David Wills, and Jean-Luc Nancy in order to draw on specific motifs that are relevant for a thinking of sight and blindness. The motifs on which I elaborate are immediacy, prosthesis, and extension respectively. In consecutive chapters, based on close readings of these selected texts and the development of these motifs in them, my study elaborates on the relevance of the work of these three thinkers for a thinking of sight and blindness that does not conform to the hierarchical dualisms of Western metaphysics. Following this, I engage three texts by selected theorists from the large and growing field of disability studies—Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Lennard Davis, David T. Mitchell, and Susan L. Snyder—in order to make the case that disability studies has not yet challenged its own metaphysical assumptions.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "August, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 17-18). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1934. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. [145]-159.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1934. / Vita. Published also without thesis note. Bibliography: p. [145]-159.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The purpose of the writer is to create public understanding about the social, educational and economic needs of the blind in India; to build up a program for the quick amelioration of their sad condition and to provide for free and compulsory basic education and vocational training of blind children and young adults along with the sighted, in accordance with their individual talents and aptitude.

L’enjeu de cette thèse était d’explorer et d’analyser au niveau organisationnel :- que certaines technologies - aussi séduisantes et utiles soient-elles - s’immiscent dans nos vies (immixtion et/ou immersion volontaire) ou nous sont imposées sans débat ni critique par les acteurs du marché tout en produisant de nouvelles formes de vie : c’est l’aveuglement technologique ; - alors que le système politique devrait réguler par le contrôle, c’est le libéralisme qui prévaut par les nouvelles formes ou lieux de pouvoirs, la mondialisation, et la financiarisation de l’économie manifestant un autre aveuglement : l’aveuglement libéral. Ces deux aveuglements ont-ils des analogies, des singularités, des liens et des interactions au sein des organisations ? Si tel est le cas, cela conduirait, peut-être, à une résultante très peu explicitée et donc peu étudiée : un aveuglement organisationnel ? Notre travail doctoral apporte une réponse positive à ces deux questions. / This thesis was explores and analyses at organisational level:- the fact that certain technologies – however seductive and useful they are – intrude in our lives (intrusion and/or voluntary immersion) or are imposed on us without debate or criticism by market players and produce new forms of life : this is technological blindness; - the fact that while the political system should regulate and control, market forces dominate through new forms or centres of power ; globalisation and the financialised economy are manifestations of another type of blindness : liberalist blindness. Do these two types of blindness have analogies, particular features, links and interactions within organisations? If so, might this generate a phenomenon that has hardly been identified or studied : organisational blindness? My doctoral work answers these two questions in the affirmative.

Landau and Gleitman's experiments investigating a blind child's meaning for look, as it applied to herself, were replicated with a three year old boy who was totally blind, and had no concomitant disorders. Several commands to look were presented within informal play sessions. Responses to the look commands were compared with responses to instructions to touch, listen and taste. Experiments were video recorded for subsequent analysis. It was found that the blind child associated the haptic perceptual modality with the visual verb, in that an instruction to look at an object elicited manual exploration of the object. His meaning for look was distinct from his meanings for the other perceptual verbs. These findings were consistent with Landau and Gleitman's findings. Landau and Gleitman's interpretation, of how a blind child's mastery of visual terms bears on the word/meaning mapping problem, is critically discussed. / Medicine, Faculty of / Audiology and Speech Sciences, School of / Graduate

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University