What happens when a classroom becomes more than just a site of intellectual growth and evolves into a locus of emotional, social, and spiritual transformation? What happens when a student in such a classroom also occupies the role of teacher and desires to reproduce such a transformative environment for his students? In brief, this thesis answers these questions by offering a narrative and critique of my personal "conscientization" via feminism and elucidates the theory behind, my approaches toward, and the results of my bringing graduate-level feminist theory and pedagogy to a middle school English classroom. I examine how my experiences as a student in both the past and the present have merged to shape my work as a teacher and have set me on the path to becoming a professor, not only in the sense of a college teacher as a profession but as a person who professes, who openly declares the truths of my past as both dehumanizer and dehumanized to help others come to critical consciousness. First, I autobiographically critique my learning and assimilation of The Iliad and The Odyssey in middle school, reflecting upon how these works occupied a major part of my indoctrination into the hyper-masculine, white, patriarchal, upper-class dogma of the culture, as well as bringing a feminist perspective to bear upon these personally influential epics. Next, I examine my studies in the University of South Florida's master's program in English literature and, in particular, my direct and life-changing encounter with feminism in a 2009 course in feminist theory, which facilitated a complete re-visioning of my life and led to a personal renaissance. The final part of this circular path leads me back to my teaching of the same classical texts that so greatly influenced me as a young man, and I explain how my transformative experiences with both feminist theory and pedagogy motivated me to distill their critical approaches into a form and format that I have successfully implemented for my middle-school classroom.

In northern Thailand, legal and social change creates dilemmas for forest conservation. On the one hand, Thailand suffers from severe deforestation and biodiversity degradation mainly as a result of human activities that overuse and encroach on forest areas. On the other hand, forestry law has, in turn, intruded on traditional communities that lived in and relied on the forest before modern state law diminished their lands and community rights. One of the potential solutions to this dilemma is community forest management (CFM), which acknowledges the forest stewardship of the communities who rely on the forest and helps them to become better forest protectors. CFM refers to people’s participation in forest conservation in the form of collective community action. The right to practise CFM is guaranteed in the Thai Constitution as a community right. However, state forestry law provides direct authority to government agencies and dominates forest management without reference to the Constitution. My hypothesis is that the Thai legal system is not compatible with CFM because the legal culture is based on written law and not on living law, which comes from the legal consciousness of the villagers and government officers who practise CFM. I use interviews as a research method to investigate the legal consciousness of three groups of people involved in implementation of CFM: members of three selected northern lowland and hill tribe communities/villages; government officers; and legal professionals. I apply green legal theory to analyze the two types of law governing CFM: state law and the law of the commons. People in the selected forest communities apply their own CFM regulations and use state forestry law for support only when their regulations cannot handle extreme situations. The villagers’ own CFM – the law of the commons – together with state law, creates their “living law”. Government officers cooperate with CFM, knowing that it will help them fulfill their mission of forest conservation. In contrast, legal professionals rely only on state forestry law rather than the Constitution, despite its supremacy, and ignore the law of the commons. To explain this phenomenon, I “decode” Thai legal culture by investigating its historical and social contexts. I also examine the legal education system, law making processes, legal commentaries and court decisions, to understand what shapes Thai legal culture. In my view, the narrow focus on statute law in Thai legal culture, and the focus on law as a profession rather than as a justice-based discipline, can be explained by the “modernization” of Thai administration and laws, and by the encroachment of globalization and capitalism, both of which have resulted in moving away from traditional land management based on the commons. I conclude by suggesting that the acceptance of CFM in Thai legal culture can be improved by encouraging socio-legal study, increasing understanding of CFM, implementing constitutional legal principles – and by reclaiming the law of the commons. / Graduate

This written thesis has been developed in tandem with its practical counterpart: Entrance Not For Everybody. Together the practical and theoretical work make use of virtually every interesting experience I have had. In essence it explores how ancient spiritual practices may be the most developed tools we have for experiential mind expansion - regardless of how these practices are viewed by the scientific community. In addition this text question science's relevance for the personal experience of reality - in comparison to individual exploration of the same by whatever means. The prime strength of the sciences is its consistent, empirical development through logic. Mostly aided by external (as in not belonging to one's own body and mind) resources and tools and the development thereof. So far, science largely concern a material evolution - even if it is of an immaterial nature such as software or intellect. What I propose is the Human Individual Experience - optional means for experiencing the world as alternative ways of knowing. The work's main intention is to awaken an interest in spiritual practice in individuals who have no such experience or did not know to value such experiences that could be perceived as being of spiritual magnitude. This is important because regardless of the nature of spiritual content - seen from a scientific perspective of any kind - spiritual experiences are mind blowing, mind altering and most of all mind expansion in its purest form - at least on an experiential level - which naturally is key - given the context this text is being written in. For someone who already have a personal relationship to spiritual practices of an experiential nature - of any sort - there is a place, community or method to expand within their field of choice - if not locally then certainly globally. Therefore the target audience is not the experienced spiritual seeker for whom endless paths lay ahead. What is being proposed here is an approach which put the individual's experience in the centre of all - using more or less traditional spiritual practices as they have been constructed or discovered to offer great paths into higher consciousness experientially. In its practical manifestation, Entrance Not For Everybody, these have been gift wrapped in - as well as accompanied by - layers of fiction, cultural references and very detailed physical props, much because the individual of no spiritual background who is the main target group for this introductory experience, is likely used to a material world based in tools, entertainment, storytelling etc. Therefore this redressing and recontextualizing of practices is just a means to target and introduce a new crowd to old and useful methods - in a smooth and memorable manner. The idea is to offer this experience as a starting point and to be continued as a forum or hub for future explorations of more advanced experiences focusing on expansion of consciousness. Material complexity is bound to develop further in both it's tangible and intangible realms but it is here questioned whether this will really lead to an expansion of consciousness or just offer products to reach realms that are already accessible within - at no cost. The aim of this work is not to clarify the lack of consistency in what is commonly referred to as reality - although this might be a direct consequence. It is rather taken for granted that reality is subjectively understood. Therefore the thesis only investigates if and explains how a composition of experiential practices which are strung together thoughtfully may work as a door-opener for further inquiries into the realm of spiritual practice as a means of expanding mind and consciousness. In this respect the exhibition itself is the most important research ground for the thesis - which naturally cannot be incorporated in advance.

This thesis is an examination and critique of naturalistic representational theories of phenomenal character. Phenomenal character refers to the distinctive quality that perceptual and sensational experiences seem to have; it is identified with 'what it is like' to undergo experiences. The central claims of representationalism are that phenomenal character is identical with the content of experience and that all representational states, bearing appropriate relations to the cognitive system, are conscious experiences. These claims are taken to explain both how conscious experiential states arise and their nature. After examining the desiderata for naturalistic explanations, I argue that theories which ascribe nonconceptual content to experiences are the most plausible versions of representationalism. Further, causal covariation and teleological theories yield distinctive and interesting representationalist positions, hence, they become the focus of this study. To assess representationalism, I investigate whether all differences in phenomenal character can be correlated with differences in content. I claim that a useful distinction can be drawn between implicit and explicit content, which allows one to best describe the phenomena of perfect and relative pitch. I then argue that ambiguous figures show that two experiences can have the same content but different phenomenal character. I explicate the Inverted Earth hypothesis and claim that to identify content and phenomenal character, representationalists either have to condone the possibility of philosophical zombies, or hold that people lack authoritative first-person knowledge of their current experiences. Both these positions are unpalatable. Finally, I argue that representationalists cannot ascribe contents to experiences of novel colours to account for their phenomenal character. I also question, in light of dissociation phenomena, whether there is one distinctive relationship that all experiences bear to the cognitive system. I conclude that phenomenal character cannot be identical with the type of content under investigation, and that naturalistic representationalist theories cannot fully explain conscious experience.

This dissertation explores the neural coding and mechanisms associated with consciousness by analyzing electrical rhythms of the brain under altered states of consciousness, namely epilepsy and anesthesia. First, transformation of neural coding under epileptogenic conditions is examined by computing the Volterra kernels in a rodent epilepsy model, where the epileptogenic condition is induced by altering the concentrations of Mg2+ and K+ of the perfusate for different levels of excitability. Principal dynamic modes (PDMs) are further deduced from the Volterra kernels to compare the changes in neural dynamics under epileptogenic conditions. The integrating PDMs are shown to dominate at all levels of excitability in terms of their relative contributions to the overall response, whereas the dominant frequency responses of the differentiating PDMs shift to higher ranges under epileptogenic conditions, from ripple activities (75 - 200 Hz) to fast ripple activities (200 - 500 Hz). Second, markers of anesthetic states are explored by analyzing amplitude and phase of brain rhythms as well as their interaction and modulation, utilizing electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded from patients undergoing anesthesia. Anesthesia shifts the power to low frequency rhythms, especially alpha rhythms. Additionally anesthesia increases the coupling between alpha rhythms and gamma rhythms while disrupting the coupling between alpha rhythms and ripples (70 - 200 Hz). The results also indicate that the dose responses (i.e. depth of anesthesia) are not necessarily monophasic or linear. The commonality and differences of the changes in brain rhythms associated with these conditions are discussed to elucidate on the possible underlying mechanisms involved in producing consciousness.

This dissertation explores the neural coding and mechanisms associated with consciousness by analyzing electrical rhythms of the brain under altered states of consciousness, namely epilepsy and anesthesia. First, transformation of neural coding under epileptogenic conditions is examined by computing the Volterra kernels in a rodent epilepsy model, where the epileptogenic condition is induced by altering the concentrations of Mg2+ and K+ of the perfusate for different levels of excitability. Principal dynamic modes (PDMs) are further deduced from the Volterra kernels to compare the changes in neural dynamics under epileptogenic conditions. The integrating PDMs are shown to dominate at all levels of excitability in terms of their relative contributions to the overall response, whereas the dominant frequency responses of the differentiating PDMs shift to higher ranges under epileptogenic conditions, from ripple activities (75 - 200 Hz) to fast ripple activities (200 - 500 Hz). Second, markers of anesthetic states are explored by analyzing amplitude and phase of brain rhythms as well as their interaction and modulation, utilizing electroencephalogram (EEG) recorded from patients undergoing anesthesia. Anesthesia shifts the power to low frequency rhythms, especially alpha rhythms. Additionally anesthesia increases the coupling between alpha rhythms and gamma rhythms while disrupting the coupling between alpha rhythms and ripples (70 - 200 Hz). The results also indicate that the dose responses (i.e. depth of anesthesia) are not necessarily monophasic or linear. The commonality and differences of the changes in brain rhythms associated with these conditions are discussed to elucidate on the possible underlying mechanisms involved in producing consciousness.

No description available.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 183-186). / Electronic reproduction. / Also available by subscription via World Wide Web / xii, 186 leaves, bound 29 cm

For those living in resource rich countries such as Canada a positive HIV diagnosis no longer means an imminent death. In response to this change, numerous treatment and therapeutic institutions have arisen to assist individuals with managing their illness. Illness narratives then, the stories people tell and retell about their illness experience, are constructed by and within this multiplicity of medical frameworks that can interact in ways that are both complimentary and contradictory. Drawing on ethnographic data obtained through two months of participant observation and seven in-depth interviews at an HIV/AIDS treatment facility in Vancouver, British Columbia I discuss how illness narratives reveal the presence of and an orientation towards the powerful discourses of medicine. Some of the frameworks evident in the narratives I examine include biomedical understandings of health and disease, support group dialogues on self-empowerment, tenets of complementary and alternative medicines, clinical models of low-threshold access to health care, notions of health services as a human right, and addiction treatment concepts. In order to afford a place for the institutional discourses of medicine in my analysis, the subjective experience of illness is contextualized with reference to it’s situatedness amongst the myriad of other voices that both construct and constrain narrative production. Ultimately, I seek to demonstrate how the incorporation of disparate institutional voices into a subjective story of illness reflects the development of a unique orientation to the institutions of medicine an understanding that I conceptualize as medical consciousness.