This dissertation interrogates the generation of novel sense and meaning in the philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. In taking up the theme of creative transformation prominent in his work, I show how the emergence of novel sense and the advent of meaning structures are made possible through the asymmetrical relation of adversity and cliché. While the scholarship focuses primarily on expression, institution, and reversibility as the three principal forms of creative transformation within the work of Merleau-Ponty, I maintain that this asymmetrical relation provides the originary ground on which these forms operate. To this end, this project consists primarily of the elucidation of three terms within the context of Merleau-Ponty’s thought – namely, novelty, cliché, and adversity – and the latter two notion’s roles in the generation of sense and meaning manifest in several fields of experience including perception, the aesthetic, and the political. The immediate import of this project is in its contribution to Merleau-Ponty scholarship through a description of the relation of adversity and cliché on the generation of sense and meaning which has received little attention to date. Subsequently, this project – like the inauguration of sense and meaning – institutes a trajectory for future research. This dissertation serves to describe a fertile field of interrogation both within and in relation to Merleau-Ponty’s work on adversity, cliché, and novelty.

The Listener is an automated system that unintrusively performs knowledge acquisition from informal input. The Listener develops a coherent internal representation of a description from an initial set of disorganized, imprecise, incomplete, ambiguous, and possibly inconsistent statements. The Listener can produce a summary document from its internal representation to facilitate communication, review, and validation. A special purpose Listener, called the Requirements Apprentice (RA), has been implemented in the software requirements acquisition domain. Unlike most other requirements analysis tools, which start from a formal description language, the focus of the RA is on the transition between informal and formal specifications.

This thesis aims to analyze the conventions of Character Design, and how one may innovate without losing visual communication. Focus is put on discussing stereotypical patterns as an inescapable but potentially harmful aspect of human behavior. The type of character being examined is the Mentor Archetype, as known in the Hero’s Journey, but also used throughout narrative in all its forms. A number of mentor characters from film, animation and video games are examined in order discern what common elements there are to the various depictions of mentors found throughout both historic and popular culture, and a small number of pictures displayed to prove points. The terms archetype, stereotype, cliché and sign are looked at, and their role in the area of Character Design examined, with support from literature and articles. The social, societal, psychological and philosophical ramifications of these terms and how they relate to Character Design and the audience are discussed with further support from literature and articles. Conclusions are drawn of the importance of innovation and the harmful nature of stereotypes, and new kinds of further research are suggested.

« Notre étude vise donc à découvrir la femme, l' "ethnologue" et l'artisane qu'est Mon[i]que Cliche-Spénard à travers l'étude de son oeuvre. Il ne s'agit aucunement de fournir une information exhaustive des diverses techniques relative à la confection de la courtepointe ni de présenter un répertoire détaillé des motifs en usage dans la courtepointe traditionnelle. Bien que l'acquisition de ces connaissances ne soit pas absente du travail de recherche qui sous-tend cet ouvrage, nous ne retenons que les éléments susceptibles d'alimenter notre compréhension de l'oeuvre de Monique Cliche-Spénard, et, cela, en rapport avec l'expression traditionnelle. Cependant, nous avons jugé opportun d'introduire à l'étude de l'oeuvre proprement dite des considérations méthodologiques et étymologiques, une analyse historique de l'évolution de la courtepointe à travers le temps et l'espace et, enfin, une histoire de vie. Il a semblé que cette démarche s'imposait afin de permettre de bien cerner la place qu'occupe les travaux de Monique Cliche-Spénard en lien avec la production traditionnelle et avec la production actuelle. Cette démarche permet de nous sensibiliser à tous les éléments qui trégissent l'expression de l'artisane à travers son oeuvre. [...] Nous avons procédé en quatre étapes : le récit de vie de Monique Cliche-Spénard, le contrôle de l'information reçue par des entrevues auprès d'autres informateurs, l'enrichissement des données recueillies par la consultation de divers écrits et, enfin, l'organisation de la matière. Le plus grand problème que posait l'enquête auprès de Monique Cliche-Spénard était la nature du discours. Connue des Québécois et régulièrement sollicitée par les média d'information, l'artisane beauceronne avait bâti son propre cadre de référence lui servant à interpréter la réalité en fonction d'une image idéale, conforme aux attentes de son public. Conscient de ce fait, il fallait donc tenter d'atteindre le vécu réel de l'artisane au cours de son cheminement. »--Pages 4-5, 9

[pt] Amazônia Animada: a representação da região amazônica no cinema de animação brasileiro parte do pressuposto de que o conceito de Amazônia é uma construção social configurada principalmente pela visão exógena do alóctone, que teve origem antes mesmo da chegada dos exploradores europeus à América com as cogitações sobre o Novo Mundo. Tal construção segue até hoje sendo reelaborada pelos diversos discursos que compõem a cultura pós-moderna. Deste modo, o presente trabalho tem por objetivo verificar a forma como a região amazônica é representada pelo animador brasileiro, tomando por base os principais conceitos e imagens utilizados em representações da região em outras linguagens, como a literatura, a pintura e o cinema tradicional (de tomada direta). Essas representações fornecem imagens-clichês e estereótipos largamente reproduzidos pelo cinema de animação, que, tal qual as outras linguagens, acaba quase sempre desconsiderando tanto a realidade social, econômica e histórica da região, quanto o seu principal protagonista, o caboclo. Resulta num enfoque limitado à representação relacionada à natureza e ao indígena, o qual tornou-se simbolicamente tão forte que chega a representar também o conceito de Brasil na cinematografia estrangeira e, por muitas vezes, na própria busca de uma identidade nacional na arte brasileira. Por outro lado, narrativas lendárias tradicionais e seres mitológicos, originados e reproduzidos na tradição oral cabocla e indígena, encontram na animação o suporte ideal para sua materialização e perpetuação pela proximidade dessa linguagem com a narrativa ficcional e fantasiosa. A nosso ver, estas seriam algumas das razões para que a Amazônia continue sendo temática constantemente explorada pelo cinema de animação. / [en] Animated Amazon: the representation of the Amazon Region in Brazilian animated films is based upon the assumption that what we normally understand as the Amazon is a social construct grounded on the exogenous view whose origins are conceived even before European explorers announced America as the New World. Such conception continues into the present as it is incorporated to various discourses embedded in the post-modern culture. Therefore, the present research aims at verifying the manner in which the Amazon region is represented by Brazilian animators; it is based upon the main images and concepts applied to represent the region through other media such as literature, painting, and the traditional cinema (live act). These representations provide cliché-images and stereotypes that are widely reproduced by animated films which – likewise other media – usually disregard social, economical, and historical reality of the region and its main protagonist: the Amazonian mixed-race caboclo societies. This results in a limited standpoint of the nature and the indigenous whose imagery has become strong to the point it represents the concept of Brazil in foreign cinematography and – often times – in the search of a national identity in Brazilian arts. On the other hand, traditional legendary narratives as well as mythological beings – originated and reproduced in the mixed-race and indigenous oral tradition – find in animation the ideal support for their materialization and perpetuation due to the proximity of the media to fantasy and fictional narrative. To our understanding, these would be some of the reasons in order for the Amazon to be continuously explored by animated cinema.

Recognizing standard computational structures (cliches) in a program can help an experienced programmer understand the program. We develop a graph parsing approach to automating program recognition in which programs and cliches are represented in an attributed graph grammar formalism and recognition is achieved by graph parsing. In studying this approach, we evaluate our representation's ability to suppress many common forms of variation which hinder recognition. We investigate the expressiveness of our graph grammar formalism for capturing programming cliches. We empirically and analytically study the computational cost of our recognition approach with respect to two medium-sized, real-world simulator programs.

This research has identified elements of the social memory of librarianship from the last half of the twentieth century by collecting and examining thirty-four oral history interviews of librarians at the end of their careers. These professional life stories trace an important arc through the history of library and information science. Many of these librarians began their careers prior to the use of any form of computer technology in libraries. This cohort ushered in a wave of technological innovations that has revolutionized the access to information. These oral history interviews are part of the Capturing Our Stories Oral History Program of Retiring/Retired Librarians sponsored by the American Library Association and the School of Information at the University of Texas. The social memory includes regret and nostalgia for the librarianship practiced at the beginning of their careers, excitement and wonder about how technology has fundamentally changed the profession, and perspectives on the popular stereotype associated with their careers. / text

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Recent scholarship on conceptual writing has turned to the role of affect in poetry. Critics such as Calvin Bedient claim that by using appropriated text and appealing to intellectual encounters with poetry based around a central “concept,” conceptual writing diminishes or even ignores affect. Bedient in particular is concerned with affect's relationship with political efficacy, a relationship I call “æffect.” I make the case that because of its use of appropriated material, we must examine the transformation from source text to poetic work when discussing affect in conceptual writing. Kenneth Goldsmith's Seven American Deaths and Disasters, which consists of transcriptions of audio recordings made during and immediately following major American tragedies, involves a specific kind of affective transformation: the cliché. I discuss what makes a cliché, especially in relation to affect, before turning to Sianne Ngai's Ugly Feelings and her concept of “stuplimity.” Stuplimity is an often ignored and not easily articulated affect that arises from boredom and repetition. Stuplimity is critical for Seven American Deaths and Disasters, especially for the “open feeling” that it produces in its wake. This uncanny feeling indicates a changing tide in conversations about conceptual writing. Rather than focus on the affect of æffect, we should instead turn to the effect. / text

This paper will talk about the videos and sculptural installation in my thesis exhibition. Shooting videos outside of the studio developed into a project overarching any individual video or its particular signs. Thus, this paper will focus on the video project with examples that follow a timeline of development, rather than the actual 6 videos on display in the exhibit. The two-part sculpture "Deer in the Headlights" is created in the context of these videos, and coexists with them in a specific architectural space. This space, as well as the clichéd meaning of the deer's gaze, have a relation to the title of the show.