This thesis presents new models for determining piezoresistive response in long, thin polysilicon beams with either axial and bending moment inducing loads or torsional loads. Microelectromechanical (MEMS) test devices and calibration methods for finding the piezoresistive coefficients are also presented for both loading conditions. For axial and bending moment inducing loads, if the piezoresistive coefficients are known, the Improved Piezoresistive Flexure Model (IPFM) is used to find the new resistance of a beam under stress. The IPFM first discretizes the beam into small volumes represented by resistors. The stress that each of these volumes experiences is calculated, and the stress is used to change the resistance of the representative resistors according to a second-order piezoresistive equation. Once the resistance change in each resistor is calculated, they are combined in parallel and series to find the resistance change of the entire beam. If the piezoresitive coefficients are not initially known, data are first collected from a test device. Piezoresistive coefficients need to be estimated and the IPFM is run for the test device's different stress states giving resistance predictions. Optimization is done until changing the piezoresistive coefficients provides model predictions that accurately match experimental data. These piezoresistive coefficients can then be used to design and optimize other piezoresistive devices. A sensor is optimized using this method and is found to increase voltage response by an estimated 10 times. For torsional loads, the test device consists of a slider-crank connected to two torsional legs. The slider-crank creates torsional stress in the legs which causes a change in the electrical resistance through the legs. A model that predicts the effects of a scissor hinge on the slider-crank is presented. Torsional stresses in the legs are calculated delete{using the membrane analogy.} and the legs are discretized into long parallel resistors and the stresses delete{from the membrane analogy} applied to each resistor. Assuming a second-order piezoresistance, an optimization is then done to find the piezoresistive coefficients by changing them until the model prediction fits the test data. These coefficients can be used to predict angular displacement from resistance measurements in fully integrated torsional sensors. Potential applications are discussed, and a torsional accelerometer is presented.

The vocal folds are an essential component of human speech production and communication. Advancements in voice research allow for improved voice disorder treatments. Since in vivo analysis of vocal fold function is limited, models have been developed to simulate vocal fold motion. In this research, synthetic and computational vocal fold models were used to investigate various aspects of vocal fold vibratory characteristics. A series of tests were performed to quantify the effect of varying material and geometric parameters on the models' flow-induced responses. First, the influence of asymmetric vocal fold stiffness on voice production was evaluated using life-sized, self-oscillating vocal fold models with idealized vocal fold geometry. Asymmetry significantly influenced glottal jet flow, glottal area, and vibration frequency. Second, flow-induced responses of simplified and MRI-based synthetic models were compared. The MRI-based models showed remarkable improvements, including less vertical motion, alternating convergent-divergent glottal profile patterns, and mucosal wave-like movement. Third, a simplified model was parametrically investigated via computational modeling techniques to determine which geometric features influenced model motion. This parametric study led to identification and ranking of key geometric parameters based on their effects on various measures of vocal fold motion (e.g., mucosal wavelike movement). Incorporation of the results of these studies into the definition of future models could lead to models with more life-like motion.

This dissertation explores the political potential of dance and dance performances in public protests whereby dancing bodies are capable of performing politics through actions and movements within the boundaries established by existing power structures. Building upon the insights of political theorist Jacques Rancière, dance theorist André Lepecki, and affect theorist Brian Massumi, this study reveals the micro-political value of dancing in the form of dissensus and as an affective and aesthetic practice in politics. Dissensus, as articulated by Rancière, refers to the collision between the prevailing order and opposing viewpoints that disrupts "the distribution of the sensible" (or common sensual perception) in society. In this sense, this study suggests that the subversive affective intensities of dancing in the form of dissensus not only transgress politics as what is articulated in words, but also, transindividually, spread to other bodies and thus potentially compel them to act and think differently. Within this theoretical framework, this study argues that dissensual dancing not only expresses via the body political messages and alternative ways of living and becoming in motion, but also enables bodies to disrupt the predominant, normative, representational, and choreographic structures of power that control them in certain ways. Following the insights of critical theorists Gilles Deleuze, Brian Massumi, Judith Butler, François Debrix, and Nigel Thrift, this dissertation methodologically problematizes the idea of a singular mode of knowledge and the operation of normative frames that limit our apprehension of different worlds and lives. Thus, it adopts a more-than-representational mode of thinking, coupled with affect theory to work towards a pluralistic methodological perspective that avoids simplistic dichotomies stemming from established linguistic constructs and structures of meaning. In doing so, this study offers an alternative mode of intelligibility about precarious and resistant dancing bodies in the context of dissensual flamenco performances. Within the context of flo6x8's protests in Spain (between 2010 and 2019), this study explores how these dance performances affectively destabilized the ways people perceived and understood flamenco as an art form and challenged the physical embodiments and social norms associated with it. By putting the flamenco body at the center of this exploration, the dissertation argues that flo6x8's dissensual dance performances are not only dialectical or antagonistic, in other words, designed to be positioned against relations of economic oppression. Rather, choreographically and affectively, they also unsettle the very categories of historical, social, cultural, and normative understanding and representation of flamenco as an art and of flamenco bodies. / Doctor of Philosophy / This dissertation explores the political potential of dance and dance performances in public protests whereby dancing bodies are capable of performing politics through actions and movements within the boundaries established by existing power structures. Building upon the insights of political theorist Jacques Rancière, dance theorist André Lepecki, and affect theorist Brian Massumi, it reveals the micropolitical value of and subversive intensities in dance performances that are deployed as forms of political protest. This study further suggests that these subversive intensities extend beyond politics as articulated in words to affect non-linguistic modes of perception for the performers and the viewers. It argues that the protest dance performances not only enable dancing bodies to convey their political messages in motion or through movement, but that they also allow bodies to articulate their agency beyond dominant structures of power and authority that seek to represent and control them in certain ways. Drawing on the thought of critical theorists Gilles Deleuze, Brian Massumi, Judith Butler, François Debrix, and Nigel Thrift, this dissertation methodologically challenges the notion of a single, fixed way of understanding the social and political world. By adopting a pluralist methodological perspective, this study moves beyond oversimplified categories and binaries, which often result from established discourses and representations. In doing so, it offers an alternative mode of understanding about precarious and resistant dancing bodies in the context of politically resistant flamenco performances. Specifically, by looking at the protest performances of the flo6x8 flamenco protest collective in Spain (between 2010-2019), this study examines how this group's protest dance performances disrupt conventional perceptions of flamenco as an art form and challenge the social and normative expectations associated with flamenco and flamenco dancing bodies. By putting the body in flamenco at the center of this exploration, this dissertation suggests that flo6x8's performances not only protest current forms of economic oppression, but also affectively confront historical, cultural, and normative representations of flamenco and bodies, thus offering alternative expressions that can transcend the representational boundaries of the flamenco tradition.

No description available.

Using a sociolinguistic and post-colonial approach, I analyze Irish dramas that speak about language and its connection to national identity. In order to provide a systematic and wide-ranging study, I have selected plays written at approximately fifty-year intervals and performed before Irish audiences contemporary to their writing. The writers selected represent various aspects of Irish society--religiously, economically, and geographically--and arguably may be considered the outstanding theatrical Irish voices of their respective generations. Examining works by Alicia LeFanu, Dion Boucicault, W.B. Yeats, and Brian Friel, I argue that the way each of these playwrights deals with language and identity demonstrates successful resistance to the destruction of Irish identity by the dominant language power. The work of J. A. Laponce and Ronald Wardhaugh informs my language dominance theory. Briefly, when one language pushes aside another language, the cultural identity begins to shift. The literature of a nation provides evidence of the shifting perception. Drama, because of its performance qualities, provides the most complex and complete literary evidence. The effect of the performed text upon the audience validates a cultural reception beyond what would be possible with isolated readers. Following a theoretical introduction, I analyze the plays in chronological order. Alicia LeFanu's The Sons of Erin; or, Modern Sentiment (1812) gently pleads for equal treatment in a united Britain. Dion Boucicault's three Irish plays, especially The Colleen Bawn (1860) but also Arrah-na-Pogue (1864) and The Shaughraun (1875), satirically conceal rebellious nationalist tendencies under the cloak of melodrama. W. B. Yeats's The Countess Cathleen (1899) reveals his romantic hope for healing the national identity through the powers of language. However, The Only Jealousy of Emer (1919) and The Death of Cuchulain (1939) reveal an increasing distrust of language to mythically heal Ireland. Brian Friel's Translations (1980), supported by The Communication Cord (1982) and Making History (1988), demonstrates a post-colonial move to manipulate history in order to tell the Irish side of a British story, constructing in the process an Irish identity that is postnational.

« Comic book » est un terme anglo-saxon, plus spécifiquement américain, employé pour désigner les fascicules de bande dessinée. Il a trouvé son autonomie en 1938 avec la création de « Superman » qui a amorcé l'hégémonie de la figure du « super-héros » dans la production. Au cours du vingtième siècle, éditeurs et auteurs ont eu recours à des stratégies de conquête et de fidélisation du lectorat dont le procédé de la réécriture est le plus significatif. Le super-héros fut alors soumis à l'interprétation de nombreux créateurs et devint le témoin à multiples facettes de l'Histoire des États-Unis. Il s'est dessiné à partir des années quatre-vingt une tendance réflexive qui prend cette figure comme objet critique et qui a donné naissance à ce qu'on appelle ici le « metacomic ». À partir d'un corpus représentatif, cette thèse est consacrée aux stratégies qui fondent cette réflexivité et aux discours qu'elle véhicule dans les œuvres. Elle se divise en quatre chapitres. Le premier est un descriptif de l'industrie du comic book qui explique ses particularités et l'hégémonie en son sein du genre « superhéroïque ». Le second est dédié aux processus formels qui permettent de justifier la constitution du corpus en définissant la réflexivité des œuvres. Le troisième est voué à une analyse du caractère idéologique de cette métafiction, afin de montrer en quoi la mise en crise du super-héros sert un discours sur l'Histoire et la politique américaines. Le dernier s'intéresse à la manière dont les œuvres consacrent le super-héros comme figure de l'imagination : adoptant une approche fictionnaliste, on y démontre comment transfictionnalité et univers fictionnels sont utilisés pour revisiter / “Comic Book” is the Anglo-Saxon, more specifically American term employed to describe a specific material medium for comics. The epochal moment in the history of the comic book was the 1938 publication of « Superman », which marked the starting point of the hegemony of the figure of the superhero in comic production. Over the course of the twentieth century, authors and publishers have used various strategies for winning over readers and securing their loyalty. Among these, the technique of rewriting is the most significant. Thus, the superhero has been the subject of many reinterpretations, and consequently, has born witness to many facets of the United States’ history. The publications of the 1980s have seen the rise of a reflexive approach in which the superhero becomes an object of critique himself. This new genre is here referred to as Metacomic. Drawing on a representative body of works, the doctoral thesis at hand examines the strategies that constitute this reflexivity, as well as the multiple discourses that it gives rise to. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter gives an account of the comic book industry and explains its particularities, as well as the hegemonic position of the superhero genre in the industry. The second chapter attempts a definition of reflexivity in comic books, which permits to establish a body of works to be examined. The third chapter attempts an analysis of the ideological aspects of this metafiction in order to show how the crisis of the superhero reflects on a certain discourse on American history and politics. The fourth and last chapter examines how the analysed comics establish the superhero as an agent of imag

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis centers on a country that has produced some of the greatest and most important English language dramas of the past two centuries. Within this cultural context, this thesis is also about a feminine revival in Irish theatre and how this can be a powerful tool to incite change. Early in history, Irish writers, and specifically dramatists, recreated a type of theatre that captured the true essence of what it meant to be Irish by representing their struggles, frustrations and humor. The Irish talent for storytelling connects back to its Gaelic roots and has remained a constant in the life of a culture that has passed down this art form for centuries. The focus of this thesis is to examine three contemporary Irish plays by prominent playwrights who came to the world of theatre from very different backgrounds. Each play is written by a different hand, yet all share a vital common denominator: the interaction of female character groups – groups that are central to the action of each play. What incited my interest in these three plays – Brian Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa, Anne Devlin’s Ourselves Alone and Marina Carr’s The Mai – was the playwright’s ability to expose what had been silenced in Irish history for so long. Each female character portrays one important aspect of Irish womanhood that has been tragically understated in the nation’s literature since the death of John Millington Synge: woman’s struggle between what she wants to be and who she is expected to be. These three plays will be scrutinized in terms of three elements of social control contributing to woman’s struggle in Irish society: myth, church and patriarchal tradition.

Cette étude s'intéresse à la façon dont la fiction d'horreur arrive à provoquer chez ses lecteurs des réactions psychosomatiques de dégoût et de peur. Nous avons l'intention d'aborder ce genre à travers une approche centrée à la fois sur le texte et sur les procédés affectifs inhérents au processus de la réception, afin d'étudier la manière dont le récit d'horreur sollicite l'investissement émotionnel du lecteur. En prenant appui sur les stratégies narratives à l'œuvre dans la fiction de Brian Evenson, d'H. P. Lovecraft et de Stephen King, nous tenterons de circonscrire un certain nombre d'éléments textuels influençant la réception affective de ces textes et participant à l'émergence des effets de peur ; notre hypothèse étant que le roman d'horreur a recours à deux esthétiques visant différents effets sur la réception, soit une horreur corporelle et une horreur cognitive. Alors que la première vise à susciter des réactions physiques d'abjection chez le lecteur, la seconde s'attache davantage à créer de l'angoisse et de la terreur. Le dégoût ou le malaise ainsi suscités deviennent une caractéristique qui participe à la définition des sous-catégories du genre. Ces classifications ne sont toutefois pas étanches, puisqu'elles peuvent se combiner dans un même récit. Nous nous demanderons comment ces deux esthétiques se situent par rapport à un objectif commun, celui de générer des émotions et des sensations chez le lecteur, et aux moyens de quelles composantes formelles elles tentent d'y parvenir. Nous visons, à travers notre examen des stratégies narratives à l'œuvre dans les textes de fiction horrifique et des effets recherchés lors de la réception, à une meilleure compréhension de la dimension affective de la lecture. / This master's thesis looks at how horror fiction manages to provoke psychosomatic reactions of disgust and fear in its readers. We intend to study this genre through an approach that focuses both on the text and on the affective processes inherent to the reception process, to analyse how the horror narrative involves the reader's emotional investment. By analyzing the narrative strategies at work in the fiction of Brian Evenson, H. P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King, we will attempt to identify a few textual elements that influence the affective reception of these texts. Our hypothesis is that the horror novel employs two narrative strategies to achieve different effects: body writing and cognitive writing. While the former aims to elicit physical reactions of abjection in the reader, the latter is more concerned with creating anguish and terror. The disgust and unease thus triggered become characteristics that help define the subcategories of the genre. These classifications are not hermetic, however, since they can be combined in the same story. We will be looking at how these two strategies relate to a common goal - generating emotions and sensations in the reader - and by means of which aesthetic components they attempt to achieve this. Through our examination of the narrative strategies at work in horror fiction texts and the effects sought during their reception, we aim to achieve a better understanding of the affective dimension of reading.

No description available.

In the immediate post-independence period, forms of state-sponsored Irish nationalism were pre-occupied with exclusive cultural markers based on the Irish language, mythology and folk traditions. Because of this, a postcolonial examination of how such nationalist forms of identity were fetishised is necessary in order to critique the continuing process of decolonization in Ireland. This dissertation investigates Brian O’Nolan’s engagement with dominant colonial and nationalist literary discourses in his fiction and journalism. Deleuze and Guattari define a ‘minor’ writer’s role as one which deterritorializes major languages in order to negotiate textual spaces which question the assumptions of dominant groups. Considering this concept has been applied to postcolonial studies due to the theorists’ linguistic and political concerns, this dissertation explores the ‘minor’ literary practice of Brian O’Nolan’s authorial personae and writing techniques. Through the employment of Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the deterritorialization of language alongside Walter Benjamin’s models of the flâneur and translation, and Claude Lévi-Strauss’s concept of bricolage, this thesis examines the complex forms of postcolonial narrative agency and discursive political resistance in O’Nolan’s work. While O’Nolan is often read in biographical terms or within the frameworks of literary modernism and postmodernism, this thesis aims to demonstrate the politically ambivalent nature of his writing through his creation of liminal authorial selves and heterogeneous narrative forms. As a bi-lingual author, O’Nolan is linguistically ‘in-between’ languages and, because of this, he deterritorializes both historical and literary associations of the Irish and English languages to produce parodic and comic versions of national and linguistic identity. His satiric novel An Béal Bocht exposes, through his use of an array of materials, how Irish folk and peasant culture have been fetishized within colonial and nationalist frameworks. In order to avoid such restricting forms of identity, O’Nolan positions his own authorial self within a multitude of pseudonyms which refuse a clear, assimilable subjectivity and political position. Because of this, O’Nolan’s authorial voice in his journalism is read as an allusive flâneur figure. Equally, O’Nolan deterritorializes Irish mythology in At Swim-Two-Birds as a form of palimpsestic translation and rhizomatic re-mapping of a number of literary traditions which reflect the Irish nation while in The Third Policeman O’Nolan deconstructs notions of empirical subjectivity and academic and scientific epistemological knowledge. This results in an infinite form of fantastical writing which exposes the limited codes of Irish national culture and identity without reterritorializing such identities. Because O’Nolan’s ‘minor’ literary challenge is reflective of the on-going crisis of Ireland’s incomplete decolonization, this thesis employs the concept of ‘minor’ literature to read Ireland’s historical past and contemporary modernity through O’Nolan’s multi-voiced and layered narratives.