Thesis (Ph. D.)--Dept. of Japanese, School of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts, University of Sydney, 2004. / Bibliography: leaves 332-338.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2004. / Title from title screen (viewed 16 April 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Japanese Studies, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2004; thesis submitted 2003. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (M.S.)--Wisconsin. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 57-60).

Thèse--Universit́e de Paris.

This thesis identifies and responds to a contemporary impasse in the curatorial, which is thought of as the realm that encompasses curating as a complex action and interaction; a verb that includes the conceiving, organising and executing of exhibitions as well as critical thinking around curation as a discipline. The current impasse in curation the thesis responds to is caused, on the one hand, through its rapid expansion since the late 1980s and, on the other, through its mainstream and populist appropriation, which confuses understandings of it. The thesis proposes a strategy for the recovery for curating’s most basic work of ‘taking care’ and situates the curatorial as a creative act. It adopts Duchamp’s inframince as an artistic concept, and uses it as a lens to reveal the role of the speculative, poetic and absurd, the personal and subjective and the instant of emergence of creativity in curatorial practice. This facilitates an essentially diffractive methodology as well as a textual method of ‘an imaginative leap’ through friction, rhythm and repetition, building on Whitehead and Barad, (among others) to connect ideas of non-linearity and relay in (art) history. Opening up this rich meshwork thus allows for a reconnection of the curatorial to its original provenance and connoisseurship. The poetic investigation of an invisible force, the inframince, which is seen as instrumental to the curatorial and meaning making in general, is underpinned by the investigation of two other major, intertwining narratives – laughter and cybernetics. This liberates the inframince’s versatility and makes it potentially an operative tool, following Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of becoming minor and O’Sullivan’s interpretation, within a wider trans-disciplinary framework of art-science collaborations. Through this discussion, the thesis then reaffirms the curatorial (as it is intended here) as a practice that shapes the collaboration between specific human and nonhuman elements: the curator, and the artist (and/or scientist) and texts, artefacts, spaces and time.

M.Phil. / Everybody wants to experience happiness, prosperity and good health. Today's demands and pressures make it very difficult to experience well-being in our work environment and personal life. Symptoms like stress, negative attitude, depression, aggression and low productivity are visible. All these symptoms have an influence on the human body and emotions. Psychosomatic illnesses like depression, stress, heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma and back and shoulder pains are common phenomena. The question is what can a person do, in spite of the circumstances, to achieve personal well-being and healthiness. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of some emotions on personal well-being, specifically the influence of stress as an unhealthy emotion and laughter and humor as healthy emotions. The specific research questions are: 1. What is the effect of stress, as an unhealthy emotion, on a human's wellbeing? 2. What is the effect of laughter and humor, as healthy emotions, on a human's well-being? 3. What are the benefits that laughter and humor, as healthy emotions, have for personal wellbeing and healthiness? The research programme entails the following: Chapter one gives a general orientation of the study. The second chapter focuses on the influence of stress as an unhealthy emotion on personal well-being while chapter three deals with the influence of laughter and humor as healthy emotions on personal well-being. In chapter four the characteristics of a personal and professional leader as well as the main life domains are investigated. Chapter five concludes the research with a summary, findings and conclusion. 2. METHOD OF APPROACH A descriptive research strategy was followed in this study. A descriptive research study is a systematic, accurate and factual description of something, in this case the influence of some emotions on personal well-being, for the sake of better understanding, insight and informativeness (Smith, 1993:35). The prevalent research methods used were studies of existing literature available in this field as well as concept and phenomena analyses. 3. RESEARCH FINDINGS The research findings are as follows: Stress has a physiological and a psychological influence on the human body and has been shown to affect almost all body systems, resulting in cardiovascular disease, neuromuscular disorders (including migraine and chronic back pain}, respiratory and allergic disorders, immunologic disorders, gastrointestinal disturbances (including peptic ulcer disease, irritable bowel syndrome, nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea), skin disease, dental problems, and a host of other disorders (Hafen, 1996:44). Laughter and humor have, because of the physiological changes that take place, a big impact in terms of physical benefits (including respiratory activity, oxygen exchange, heartrate, and toning the cardiovascular system), pain relief, (arthritis, gout, back and shoulder pain), immunity-enhancing and psychological benefits (stress relieve, bestowing a sense of power, giving new perspective). By applying specific suggestions how to use laughter and humor as healthy emotions from a Personal and Professional Perspective it is possible to achieve personal well-being and healthiness.

This thesis attempts to redress the drought of work on Dickens on comedy, which is surprising considering how often Dickens is thought of as a comic writer. The thesis uses Dickens to demonstrate problems with and resistance to existing theorizations of laughter, and attempts to develop a new way of thinking about laughter through Dickens. The thesis begins with a theoretical section, which is a discussion of existing discussions of laughter followed by an attempt to develop a new way of thinking about laughter by making use Alain Badiou’s concept of the ‘event.’ The thesis then moves to Section Two, in which these ideas are discussed alongside Dickens’s novels. Chapter Four attempts to show in a general way how Dickens and these discussions of laughter belong together, and how a certain moment in the nineteenth century that Dickens was a unique part of shows that new ways of discussing laughter are needed. Chapter Five argues that laughter in Dickens is not natural or spontaneous but part of constructing an idea of natural spontaneity. Pickwick Papers, it is argued, is the novel of retroactive causes, showing how laughter can create ideas of ‘nature’ which then appear to explain social behaviour such as laughter itself. Chapter Six tackles the relationship between laughter and anxiety. It argues that laughter creates order by ‘dealing’ with anxiety, but that this order it produces is profoundly unstable and has new anxieties. Barnaby Rudge is the novel which shows this in its particular historical context. The final chapter argues that Dickens’s writing can be called ‘comic’ in the terms that have been established throughout the thesis. Discussing Great Expectations, it argues that laughter is a plotting force that creates narratives and structures. Finally, the conclusion discusses changes that may have happened to laughter in the nineteenth century and what it means to find ourselves laughing at Dickens’s texts today.

This thesis is a narrative inquiry of laughter in a University Lab School preschool classroom that describes the many situations in which children laugh as well as laughter's importance for the children, for me, and for all of us as a whole within the context of our classroom. To date, there is a paucity of research on children's laughter, especially in young children. The majority of research that has been conducted has been quantitative in nature, with few attempts to comprehensively describe the many situations in which laughter occurs. For my study, I felt it crucial to look at, document, and describe preschoolers' laughter, taking into consideration the many facets of their school day including free play, story time, playground time, and snack time. My sample included all of my 14 preschoolers, who ranged in age from 3 years to 4 years, 4 months at the outset of the study. I also deemed it important to look at what these laughter-producing situations meant to me and the children in my classroom, including what deeper worth laughter for all of us, how we used it in the classroom, and how it helped me to grow both personally and professionally through my research. / Master of Science

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Teachers College, Columbia University, 1993. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Keville Frederickson. Dissertation Committee: Maxine Greene. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-206).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Divinity School, December 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 306-322). Also available on the Internet.