This is an ethnographic study of visitors to the island of Iona on the west coast of Scotland, popularly reputed to be a 'special' place. Using qualitative data obtained through interviews and participant observation, it explores the situated category of the 'special' as visitors apply it to Iona: analysing its form, its key elements, the process of its construction, and its application across a range of interactions and settings on the island. The thesis argues that the ascription of 'specialness' to Iona is a visitor narrative of belonging, a form of visitor 'work', and a way for Iona's transient subjects to participate in the ongoing, everyday life on the island. The thesis marks its origins in the idea of tourists as producers (chapter 1), the academic field of religion and tourism (chapter 2) and the field site of Iona (chapter 3). It then 'turns', arguing that the theoretical frameworks used in religion and tourism cannot be readily applied to the case of visitors on Iona, and advocating a shift to the vocabulary of the 'special', borrowed from visitors and theorised in light of the work by Ann Taves (chapter 4). In its second half, it provides a systematic study of specialness on Iona through an analysis of various 'moving parts': its form (the story; chapter 5), its contents (safety; connectedness and a sense of being 'out-of-time'; chapter 6), its construction (the processes of gazing and possessing; chapter 7), its functions (enabling visitors to make 'homes' and mark their 'place' on the island; chapter 8), and its implications for wider studies of religion and tourism (chapter 9). In offering a malleable conceptualisation of specialness with broad explanatory value, in considering visitors to be agents and producers of their own experience, and in providing an in-depth ethnography of narratives about a significant and contemporary visitor destination, this thesis aims to expand the scope of the 'Religion and Tourism' nexus in which it began.

No description available.

Stadens urbana landskap består av en komplex sammansättning. Dels utgörs staden av det vi ser omkring oss i form av byggnader, torg och gator, men förankrat i dessa rum och platser finns även mängder av minnen, berättelser och känslor. Undersökande av samspelet mellan den urbana miljön och oss människor utgör grunden för denna uppsats och projekt. Syftet med projekt är således att undersöka hur vi som människor relaterar till plats och objekt i stadens offentliga rum och hur detta har värdeskapande effekter, och vilka aspekter gör en plats värdefull och skapar en atmosfär som vi vill stanna i under en längre tid. Plats, minne och känslor är tätt sammanbundna och detta tar jag fasta vid i projektet. Jag resonerar kring huruvida minnen och berättelser kan bidra till en känsla av inneboende värde i en plats i det offentliga rummet. Därtill vill jag bevisa hur fysisk gestaltning i det offentliga rummet kan verka som viktiga färg- och formbärare, och som därmed har en förmåga att påverka vårt mående och varande. Detta kommer resultera i en plats-specifikt designförslag av en sittplats för offentliga rum som väcker nyfikenhet och förmedlar minnen och historier.   Bakgrunden för projektet vilar dels i min egen kunskap inom ämnet kulturgeografi från tidigare studier inom samhällsplanering, samt en övertygelse om att färg, form och material påverkar våra känslor och tankar.  Det teoretiska ramverket för projektet kommer utgå från relevanta teorier kring platsidentitet, placemaking och space and place. Gestaltningsmässiga referenser och inspirationskällor kommer hämtas från olika håll, men mitt förhållningssätt i min egen praktik är inspirerad av postmodernistisk design och arkitektur. Denna stilbildning och idé präglades av eklektiska ideal samt ett ifrågasättande av föreställningar kring hur något ”bör” se ut och fungera (Kristofferson, 2003). Min förhoppning är att även i detta projekt inspireras idémässigt av denna epoks variation och bredd. I projektet kommer metodkombination att användas i syfte att få en allomfattande uppfattning av platsen samt berika studien med olika perspektiv och infallsvinklar. Genom att kombinera både samhällsvetenskapliga metoder samt designmetoden är förhoppningen att uppnå en kompletterande effekt. Metoder som kommer användas är platsanalyser, observationer och intervjuer. Detta kommer i sin tur att forma gestaltningsförslagets utformning och resultera i en sittplats för offentliga rum.

This semester-long microethnography explores how the emotional geography in two online, synchronous critical multicultural education courses are shaped by online interactions and infrastructures as well as social frames. Using a microethnographic approach, video data, interviews, and open-ended questionnaires revealed patterns of interactions suggesting an online emotional geography characterized by a duality of physical place and online space. Key findings suggest that the levels of permeability in student and instructor's physical location influence how online participants gave or received emotion gifts and performances in online spaces. This study further supports emergent research suggesting gender frames as relevant in students' level of online participation and instructors' perception of professionality. Implications include an increased level of emotion work as instructors and students manage complex identities in online classrooms. Furthermore, online instructors should be aware of the unique characteristics of the online emotional geography as they seek to create more equitable online communities of learning.

In her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975) Laura Mulvey explains how film portrays the female characters as passive sexualised objects, on display for the male (erotic) gaze. Although, Mulvey did make amendments to the original article after it was criticised, her original article is still influential and referenced in academic writing on film. This dissertation investigates how the three selected mainstream American films, namely, Alice in Wonderland, Monster and Transamerica, have female protagonists who deviate from Mulvey’s initial standpoint and enact a new dynamic, whereby the female characters possess active bodies. In order to explain this new dynamic, the dissertation provides an overview of relevant theory in order to establish the necessary analytical tools to investigate the representation of the female body. These tools are taken from feminist notions of the body, most importantly Mulvey’s notions, in order to establish what constitutes an active female body that subverts the male gaze. This subversion is most notable when examining the iconography of the active female body. The dissertation also draws from the overview the importance of place and space, the embodiment of the characters’ inner workings in specific locations, and their relationship with the locations in which they are depicted. Since all three films include a physical journey on which the respective protagonists embark the examination of borders and border crossings is included. The dissertation shows that journeys bring with them the opportunity for the body to be active, as each female protagonist is on a journey to self-discovery. The changing settings in which the protagonists find themselves are an embodiment of their inner workings. Topographical borders mark the entering of new locations. However, concomitant symbolic and epistemological borders are also crossed. The female protagonists need to make choices concerning their lives and as a consequence alter the representations to reflect bodies that subvert the male gaze. These female bodies are active. However, they are active in different ways. Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, delves into her psyche to emerge a changed and independent Victorian woman. Bree, from Transamerica, heals the relationships with her family and is able to have her gender reconstructive surgery to become a physical woman. These two female protagonists have positive representations of the active female body. The protagonist from Monster, Aileen, is represented in a constant state of abjection and her active body is portrayed in a negative light. Whether represented in a positive or egative light, these chosen films all portray an active female body that does subvert the male gaze, and hence represent a new dynamic different from the one Mulvey described. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

It is a little-known fact that several modernists wrote for children: this project will focus on T.S. Eliot‘s Old Possum‟s Book of Practical Cats, James Joyce‘s The Cat and the Devil, Gertrude Stein‘s The World is Round and Virginia Woolf‘s Nurse Lugton‟s Curtain. While not often thought of as a modernist, I contend that Walter de la Mare‘s short stories for children, especially The Lord Fish, take part in this corpus of modernist texts for children. These children‘s stories, while scarcely represented in critical circles, have enjoyed a wide popular audience and have all been translated into French. Modernism is often considered an elitist movement, but these texts can contribute to its reassessment, as they suggest an effort towards inclusivity of audience. The translation of children‘s literature is a relatively new field of study, which builds from descriptive translation studies with what is unique to children‘s literature: its relation to pedagogy and consequent censorship or other tailoring to local knowledge; frequently, the importance of images; the dual audience that many children‘s books have in relating to the adults who will select, buy and potentially perform the texts; and what Puurtinen calls ‗readaloud- ability‘ for many texts. For these texts and their French translations, questions of children‘s relations to place and space are emphasised, and how these are complicated in translation through domestication, foreignisation and other cultural context adaptations. In particular, these modernists actively write against Rousseau‘s notion of the ―innocent‖ boy delighting in the countryside and learning from nature. I examine the international dialogue that takes place in these ideas of childhood moving between France and England, and renegotiated over the span of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This study thus seeks to contribute to British modernist studies, the growing field of the translation of children‘s literature, and children‘s geographies.

This practice-led research examines ideas surrounding the interpretation of place; the representation and experience of place are explored in my practice and throughout the thesis. The practice and thesis develop an interdependent relationship where one informs the other and each provides a critical platform whereby existing beliefs are brought into question and new ideas emerge. During the research period the practice is tested against different circumstances in a variety of situations and novel responses are generated. The thesis critically analyses approaches to interpreting place through a number of formats and a variety of sources. Both practice and theory are examined through peer-reviewed conference papers, artist-in-residence programmes and publications allowing new ideas to be explored and scrutinized by the academy. A working method that recognizes the importance and usefulness of serendipity and sagacity is established, bringing together my practice and the theoretical scope of the research. My primary focus is to understand and develop critical responses to the experience and representation of place within the realm of contemporary art practice. The work of W.G. Sebald and the secondary literature surrounding his work plays a significant role in providing ways of dealing with the entanglement of knowledge. Period Drama is both the name of an artwork and the name I have given to a conference paper. Both explore the convoluted and complex methods involved in realizing a site-specific work that challenges fiercely-held beliefs about place. My intention throughout the research has been to examine a variety of approaches that explore the representation and experience of place within contemporary art practice. Prominent within this examination has been the highlighting of the need to belong to a particular place and the sense of displacement generated when this need to belong is challenged or the nature of this connection is questioned.

This thesis forms a contribution to the historical geography of botanical knowledge. It examines the writings, teaching and public engagement in botany of John Hutton Balfour (1808-1884), Regius Professor of Botany and Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and Regius Keeper of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) between 1845 and 1879. The thesis explores the methods and approaches used by Balfour to promote botany. It pays specific attention to his scientific correspondence, publications, teaching and pedagogical practices (including fieldwork) and to his role in promoting the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. The curriculum Balfour constructed covered the major aspects of nineteenth-century botanical knowledge: plant structure, morphology and classification as well as aspects then 'on the fringes' of becoming popular - plant physiology. In order to teach this curriculum, Balfour meticulously shaped scientific, pedagogic and social spaces into places of scientific production and discovery. Study of his published work, classroom, field sites and involvement with the public sphere together form the principal elements of this thesis. These are the central places and productive sites in which his botany was made. Balfour's published work allowed him to develop theoretical aspects in his view of botany. For Balfour, writing was an occupation about which he cared deeply both in terms of its role in knowledge circulation but also from a personal perspective. His publication of texts suitable for several distinct audiences (while financially rewarding,) was also an excellent method of circulating botanical and religious knowledge, two topics he was passionate to promote. The classroom provided the setting for Balfour to teach through practical instruction. He employed sensory stimulating objects in order to encourage students to learn the skill of botanical identification and observation. The 'field', like the classroom, was also a site of practical instruction. Balfour's construction of 'the field' was careful and deliberate. It was based on familiarity of location, experience of working in the field, and an extensive knowledge of the geographical distribution of plants in Scotland. Balfour's engagement with the public was evident in his involvement with the Botanical Society of Edinburgh (BSE), and by lectures delivered to groups with the object of moral improvement through botany. The thesis situates Balfour's work within recent literature on the historical geography of scientific knowledge, with particular attention to the importance of place and the sites of science's making. In this way, Balfour's work is illustrative of wider elements of the situated production, and variable dissemination, of scientific (botanical) knowledge.

No description available.

In her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975) Laura Mulvey explains how film portrays the female characters as passive sexualised objects, on display for the male (erotic) gaze. Although, Mulvey did make amendments to the original article after it was criticised, her original article is still influential and referenced in academic writing on film. This dissertation investigates how the three selected mainstream American films, namely, Alice in Wonderland, Monster and Transamerica, have female protagonists who deviate from Mulvey’s initial standpoint and enact a new dynamic, whereby the female characters possess active bodies. In order to explain this new dynamic, the dissertation provides an overview of relevant theory in order to establish the necessary analytical tools to investigate the representation of the female body. These tools are taken from feminist notions of the body, most importantly Mulvey’s notions, in order to establish what constitutes an active female body that subverts the male gaze. This subversion is most notable when examining the iconography of the active female body. The dissertation also draws from the overview the importance of place and space, the embodiment of the characters’ inner workings in specific locations, and their relationship with the locations in which they are depicted. Since all three films include a physical journey on which the respective protagonists embark the examination of borders and border crossings is included. The dissertation shows that journeys bring with them the opportunity for the body to be active, as each female protagonist is on a journey to self-discovery. The changing settings in which the protagonists find themselves are an embodiment of their inner workings. Topographical borders mark the entering of new locations. However, concomitant symbolic and epistemological borders are also crossed. The female protagonists need to make choices concerning their lives and as a consequence alter the representations to reflect bodies that subvert the male gaze. These female bodies are active. However, they are active in different ways. Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, delves into her psyche to emerge a changed and independent Victorian woman. Bree, from Transamerica, heals the relationships with her family and is able to have her gender reconstructive surgery to become a physical woman. These two female protagonists have positive representations of the active female body. The protagonist from Monster, Aileen, is represented in a constant state of abjection and her active body is portrayed in a negative light. Whether represented in a positive or egative light, these chosen films all portray an active female body that does subvert the male gaze, and hence represent a new dynamic different from the one Mulvey described. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014