<p>The purpose of this essay is to discuss what a sensual interpretation of art is and what it should include. The discussion is based on an attempt to do a sensual interpretation of the Greek-British artist Helen Chadwick’s Cacao and Wreaths to Pleasure. Chadwick was an artist working with well-known materials in new and unexpected ways. An interpretation of her works should include the fact that her art affect us on different levels, both intellectually and sensually. The history of art includes very few examples of interpretations engaging all senses. Therefore this essay is based on literature in adjacent disciplines like aesthetics, inter art studies and synaesthesia. The thesis of The bad garden is that an art experience includes interplay between senses. This interplay which creates additive sensations, a fact that is not taken into consideration in an interpretation based on only vision. The conclusion is that a sensual interpretation should be a merge of traditional disciplines and must be characterised by subjectivity, contextuality, and intersensuality.</p>

This dissertation explores American domestic pleasures and duties during the two Gilded Ages that bracket the twentieth century. It draws upon the theoretical work of scholars from several disciplines and analyzes prescriptive and literary sources to create an intellectual history of the idea of pleasure as it appears in home life as well as its consequences. This project reframes domestic pleasures as both "true" insomuch as individuals experience them viscerally, and primarily constructed, in that hegemonic cultural discourses shape experiences of them. I argue that pleasure regulates and restricts individuals both by simultaneously shaping aspirations and manifesting in habits and activities. Since enjoyment of scripted behaviors serves to naturalize them, many seemingly private choices escape interrogation. Ultimately, domestic pleasure establishes a regulative norm that continually reshapes the meanings of homes, families, and even the individual.

The purpose of this essay is to discuss what a sensual interpretation of art is and what it should include. The discussion is based on an attempt to do a sensual interpretation of the Greek-British artist Helen Chadwick’s Cacao and Wreaths to Pleasure. Chadwick was an artist working with well-known materials in new and unexpected ways. An interpretation of her works should include the fact that her art affect us on different levels, both intellectually and sensually. The history of art includes very few examples of interpretations engaging all senses. Therefore this essay is based on literature in adjacent disciplines like aesthetics, inter art studies and synaesthesia. The thesis of The bad garden is that an art experience includes interplay between senses. This interplay which creates additive sensations, a fact that is not taken into consideration in an interpretation based on only vision. The conclusion is that a sensual interpretation should be a merge of traditional disciplines and must be characterised by subjectivity, contextuality, and intersensuality.

Televizija yra viena iš socializacijos priemonių, kurią žiūrima tam, kad sužinoti svarbią informaciją arba norint gerai praleisti laiką. Be to, televizija suteikia ir savotišką pasitenkinimo jausmą, kai kiekvienas žiūrintysis turi galimybę tapatintis su vaizduojamų personažų herojais, kuriuose gali identifikuoti save. Per paskutinius metus, Lietuvoje išleidžiama po kelis lietuviškus serialus, kurie susilaukia teigiamo žiūrovų įvertinimo (TNS Gallup duomenimis serialas „Moterys meluoja geriau patenka į populiariausių laidų penketuką). Nenuostabu, kad žiūrovas renkasi lietuvišką muilo operos variantą, kuriame išvysta priimtinus kultūrinius modelius, artimus vyriškumo ir moteriškumo modelius su kuriais gali tapatintis ir atrasti dalelę savęs. Todėl šiame darbe siekta išanalizuoti ir pateikti moteriškumo reprezentacijų sampratų įvairovę serialuose „Emilija“ ir „Moterys meluoja geriau“. Pirmojoje literatūros analizės dalyje aptariama feministinio moteriškumo samprata, išskiriami pagrindiniai radikaliojo, liberaliojo, socialistinio ir psichoanalitinio feminizmo autorių požiūriai. Antrojoje darbo dalyje išskiriama psichoanalizės įtaka feministiniuose tyrimuose, pristatoma vizualinio malonumo svarba kine, aptariami feministinio įgalinimo būdai žiniasklaidoje. Trečiojoje darbo dalyje pristatomos moterų reprezentacijų problematikos, pristatomi moterų ir muilo operų žiūrėjimo ypatumai, nagrinėjami moterų stereotipų vaidmuo žiniasklaidoje ir feministinėje literatūroje. Tyrimo... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Television is one of the agent tools that are playing socialization role. People are watching TV in order to receive relevant information or to spend a leisure time. Therefore, television provides particular delectation; in the meantime, everyone has opportunity to identify themselves in pictorial characters. In the recent years, screens are showing several new Lithuanian soap operas, and it has congenial viewer’s assessment (TNS Gallup records that serial “Moterys meluoja geriau” is one of the popular watching program and rating between five best programs). No, wonder why people are choosing to watch Lithuanian soap operas versions, where they can find acceptable cultural models, familiar masculinity and femininity patterns in which they can identify an element of themselves. This research seeks to analyze and to propose diversions of women femininity concepts in the serials “Emilija” and “Moterys meluoja geriau”. The first theoretical part of this work is discussing about feministic femininity concepts, excluding radical, liberal, socialistic and psychoanalytic essential scholarship approaches. The second part is about psychoanalytic viewpoint influence in feministic studies, including visual pleasure significance and feministic empowerment in the media. The third part of this research is representing women’s agency proposition, analyzes women and soap opera’s particularity and examines women’s stereotypes in the media and feministic theory. The research results has... [to full text]

Pleasure is part of hedonic well-being, with roots back to Epicurus 2000 years ago. With the new evolving neuroscientific methods of the late 20th and beginning of the 21st century, we are now able to study the biological components of pleasure. This thesis aims to review empirical studies on the neural correlates of pleasure, which can have important implications for well-being, and treatment of addiction and affective disorders. Recent studies have suggested that pleasure can be separated into coding and causing. Discoveries show that causing of pleasure is created in so called hedonic hot spots, areas of the brain that intensely creates pleasure in the shell of nucleus accumbens and in the ventral pallidum. Areas that codes pleasure on the other hand is represented into more cortical areas of the brain, including orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insular cortex. There has been a growing understanding about how pleasure is represented in the brain, and a discussion on interpretations and limitations are provided followed by future research suggestions in the final section.

A mixed methods approach was applied to investigate horse health and performance in Pony Club horses. The qualitative phase (in-depth interviews) explored owners’ perceptions of horse health and performance, whilst the quantitative phase (prospective longitudinal study) identified key health and performance problems with associated risk factors in a cohort of Pony Club horses. Quantitative analytical methods included descriptive, logistic regression and negative binomial regression analyses. Data quality and therefore internal and external validity were improved by preceding the longitudinal study with the qualitative phase. Horse health was not a well defined concept among participants, preventive health care was rarely practiced and other routine health care were administered on an ad hoc basis. Owners of Pony Club horses were concerned about their horses’ welfare, but resorted to non-veterinary sources for advice on horse health. Farriers, chiropractors and equine dentists performed the majority of health care. This observed absence of veterinary involvement in preventive and routine health care matched owners’ perceptions of veterinarians as disease experts whom they consulted for emergencies or as a last resort. Coupled with the apparent absence of pre-purchase examinations these findings raise serious concerns about the veterinary impact on the health of Pony Club horses. It was concluded that opportunities exist to improve the veterinary involvement with Pony Clubs and facilitate the extension of appropriate horse health type information. The health of Pony Club horses was found to be suboptimal with musculoskeletal and dermatological problems the most common diseases identified. High prevalences of lameness and sore backs were observed, but owner sensitivity of their detection was extremely low. Several of the horse-level risk factors identified, including height and breed for lameness, and height breed and gender for sore backs, were only alterable at the time of purchase. This suggests that owners may be at risk of purchasing horses with existing disease conditions, particularly in the absence of a veterinary examination. Other risk factors for sore backs, including housing, exercise, and body condition score could be reasoned on biomechanical grounds. An important outcome of this study was the following definition of a healthy horse: one free from pain and mentally and physically fit to participate regularly in the full range of required activities. An inextricable link between horse performance, exercise and behaviour was revealed during in-depth interviews. Initial intentions of using misbehaviour as a surrogate measure of poor performance were discarded resulting in an investigation of poor performance associated with misbehaviour, but not poor performance attributable to factors other than misbehaviour. Horses were generally exercised infrequently during each month, and this varied with season, with individual sessions lasting less than one hour. In terms of horse fitness these infrequent riding days suggest lack of strategy towards improving horse and rider skills and fitness. Another key outcome was a universally applicable definition of horse performance for Pony Club horses: good performance is considered to have occurred when the horse meets rider expectations. This is the first time that incidence of misbehaviour and associated risk factors have been described in a population of horses. Misbehaviour was more common during schooling and competing relative to pleasure riding, and more than half of the misbehaviour events were considered dangerous. Horse height, breed, and rider age were identified as risk factors for horse misbehaviour with tall Pony breeds ridden by teenagers the most likely to misbehave. The results highlighted the need to consider non-veterinary stakeholders, such as riders and Pony Club instructors, in programs to reduce misbehaviour in Pony Club horses. The study horses were kept predominantly at pasture in paddocks. The pastures these horses grazed represented an underused nutritional resource. Dietary supplements were commonly fed and often in excess. Involving agronomists to improve these horse pastures and employing simple monitoring tools such as body condition scoring more effectively will reduce reliance on expensive supplemental feeds as well as reduce the risk of obesity related disorders. Furthermore, pasture improvement coupled with strategic pasture rotation of horses and other livestock offers prospects for internal parasite control through less reliance on anthelmintics. The incidence of colic was very low in study horses, possibly due to the predominantly pasture-based diet and lifestyle of study horses. However, this same diet may have contributed to the high frequency of laminitis. Laminitis affected 24% of horses for part or all of the study, with 85 % of affected horses suffering recurring lameness and / or laminitis. Purchase of horses with chronic laminitis must be carefully considered due to this high frequency of recurrence. These findings suggest that more regular veterinary contact with Pony Club horses is desirable and would provide opportunities for owners to obtain veterinary advice on preventive health care. This veterinary contact could commence with a pre-purchase examination, and continue with comprehensive annual health checks. To achieve this, Pony Club veterinarians may have to become pro-active in marketing services beyond the treatment of disease to this sector of the equine industry.

My concern in Dead Drunk is not simply the subject matter of death, it is rather with the representation of drunks in the form of fictional phantoms in The Glass Canoe and Bliss as rendering the death drive visible. Close scrutiny of the representation of the drunk in Australian fiction, as discussed in relation to The Glass Canoe, and Bliss reveals a ‘constant recurrence of the same thing’ rendered uncannily visible. On inspection, what becomes visible is recurring deaths and subsequent resurrections. For the ghostly Australian drunk there is always the possibility of resurrection, but that resurrection is usually in the form of another drink. A drink promises resurrection, but instead delivers a return or recurrence of the drunken, ghostly state. / The presence of drinking and drunks in Australian fiction can be described as a haunting, the ghostly drunks as repetition of an anachronistic past. It is the repetition of the representations of drunks as ghostly presences in Australian fiction that is telling. Utilising Sigmund Freud’s theories developed in ‘The Uncanny’ (1919) and Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), I propose that if the uncanny is an encounter with one’s origins and the death drive is a backward looking return to origins; the drunks are a past that is repeatedly encountered in an uncanny moment. Utilising the modalities of the uncanny in regards to The Glass Canoe reveals the guises of the drunken ghosts. Making reference to an Australian colonial past, founded on intoxicant use and abuse the dissertation suggests alcoholism as a white man’s dreaming. A discussion of Bliss links the uncanny ghosts to a registration or surfacing of the death drive. In conclusion I suggest the psychoanalytic concept of sublimation as both an explanation for and a release from the symptomatic repetition. / Floundering, the creative work, is an extract from a novel in progress. The section presented is the opening to the novel. The narrative unfolds during one day, New Year’s Eve, and involves the interactions between the two brothers Jordy and Tom, and Old Fat. Loretta, the boys’ absent mother, haunts the novel and drives the narrative. Although the creative work does not explicitly depict dead drunks as discussed in the dissertation, the theory has by necessity permeated the creative, and the creative permeated the theory, forming a chiasma – a crossing over between strands of thought.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-164).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Florida State University, 2004. / Advisor: Dr. Daniel Maier-Katkin, Florida State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 18, 2005). Includes bibliographical references.

Le contexte professionnel dans lequel se déroule la carrière des universitaires français a connu ces dernières années de profondes mutations incarnées par la réforme dite LRU (loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités), la réforme du statut des enseignants-chercheurs ainsi que la réforme touchant à l'évaluation de la recherche (LOI de programme n° 2006-450 du 18 avril 2006 pour la recherche). Les règles de gestion de carrière imposées aux établissements ont changé et le cadre s'est complexifié. L'université a été replacée au centre de cette gestion, se voyant attribuer un rôle plus important dans la gestion des parcours professionnels des individus. Une injonction à l'excellence scientifique est apparue plus clairement et une menace de modulation s'est mise à peser sur les individus qui n'auraient pas une production scientifique suffisante. Il semble alors que le poids de l'environnement professionnel se soit renforcé par l'intermédiaire de règles plus exigeantes pesant sur les individus. Ces règles comportent cependant des contradictions et des ambiguïtés ayant pour effet une transformation de la relation entre les enseignants-chercheurs et leur employeur, relation qui se distend. L'ensemble de ces éléments nous a conduite à travailler sur la problématique suivante : « L'évolution du contexte professionnel (légal et réglementaire) de ces dernières années agit-il sur les parcours professionnels des universitaires français aujourd'hui ? » que nous avons traitée par l'intermédiaire d'une démarche qualitative fondée sur la méthode de recueil de données des récits de vie. La thèse que nous défendons grâce à notre travail est la suivante : L'environnement professionnel est pourvoyeur de règles et de normes suffisamment contraignantes pour pouvoir exercer une influence sur les parcours de carrière des universitaires français à travers des mécanismes d'isomorphisme que nous mettons en exergue, qu'ils soient de nature coercitive, normative ou mimétique. Cependant, l'existence de contradictions et/ou d'ambigüités dans les règles offre aux individus la possibilité d'interpréter ces dernières et leur donne la liberté de les suivre ou non. C'est le positionnement des individus, selon qu'ils soient dans une recherche de légitimité vis-à-vis de l'environnement professionnel ou plutôt dans une recherche de plaisir qui va décider de la construction du parcours. Nous défendons enfin l'idée que les réformes sont venues bouleverser les priorités des enseignants-chercheurs pouvant ainsi créer une rupture dans leur parcours de carrière. / The professional environment of French academics is moving. Indeed, reforms implemented in the French public higher education system since the 2000's have been numerous. Three main reforms are taken into account in our work. The first reform centers on organizations and is called LRU (Law n° 2007-1199 - 10th of August 2007 relative to liberty and responsibility of universities). The second reform impacts the evolution of the academics' status (Statutory order n° 2009-460 - 23th of April 2009). The third reform concerns the research evaluation process (Law of program for research n° 2006-450 - 18th of April 2006). The system underwent transformations touching universities: its autonomy was widened; and academics: the possible paths of career were modified; individual and collective practices: the accountability was strengthened. As we met a lot of academics who seemed disrupted by the evolution of the context in which their career took place, we decided to try to understand what happening. It is consequently to the influence of the professional environment on the career pathways of individuals that we dedicate our Phd work. More precisely, we analyze if this environment influences the behavior of academics in terms of careers, and if yes how does this influence play. To do so, we study the behavior regarding mobility, three types of mobilities being studied: the functional mobility (Evolution of the contents of the professional tasks and the basket of activity), the vertical mobility (Promotion) and the geographical mobility (national and international). The thesis that we defend through our work is: The professional environment is a provider of rules and standards sufficiently stringent to influence the career paths of French academics through isomorphism mechanisms that we highlight, whether coercive, normative and mimetic. However, the presence of contradictions and / or ambiguities in rules offer individuals the opportunity to interpret them and gives them the freedom to follow them or not. It is the position of individuals, whether they aim at conforming to the professional environment or rather in search of fun that will decide the path of career. Finally, we support the idea that reforms have come to upset the priorities of academics that can create a break in their career paths.