University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. / My grandfather was in a fix. He wasn’t black, like his father, but he wasn’t quite white either, like his mother. He was marrying a woman who also wasn’t-black-but-wasn’t­quite-white. The problem was that his mother was worried that her future daughter-in-law’s father was a bit too ‘dark, Oriental looking’, whilst her mother was worried because his father was half-black ‘negro’. It really was a case of pot calling kettle black. And she was already three months pregnant, so everyone was worried about whether ‘the throwback thing’ would mean that they would have a black, ‘negro’ baby. My grandparents had managed to modify their ‘brown’ bodies so they could ‘pass’ as ‘white’, but could they also somehow also modify their potentially ‘non-white’ offspring? What might the materially affective mechanisms be, that have the power to ‘fix’ bodies, so as that a brown body can become white? Franken-rat, in a different time and place, was a rat in a laboratory who had a human ear growing on its back. Its body was hideous, a monstrous blend of ratty-human flesh. Franken-rat lived and died in a laboratory, in the service of science and humanity. But how does its body, and the discourses surrounding it, materialise certain understandings about our bodies and their relationships to ‘others’ and to the world? How might our bodies understand that relationship? If my understanding of my relationship to ‘others’ is based upon a liberal humanist construct that separates ‘self’ from ‘other’ and such fleshy intertwinings as monstrous, then can I ‘become posthuman’ and affectively create that relationship as a generous and welcoming of ‘otherness’? Can posthumanism ‘overcome’ the abjection and horror of liberal humanist ideas of monstrosity? This thesis is a fictocritical exploration of bodies and their dynamic discursive and material relations with the world. If the world is a site continually in flux, how might bodies modify or be modified in order to continually belong to it? And how might we sift through the facts, the stories and the affects of family narratives, institutional spaces, historical documents, philosophical ideas, and cultural texts, discourses and practices, in order to find spaces of integrity in connection and becoming, and affective, corporeal knowledges to take into the future?

In the attempt to enrich classical literary criticism with modern theoretical perspectives, this thesis formulates an interdisciplinary methodological approach to the study of animal metaphors in the tragic depiction of female avengers. Philological and linguistic commentaries on the tragic passages where animals metaphorically occur are not sufficient to determine the effect that Attic dramatists would have provoked in the fifth-century Athenian audience. The thesis identifies the dramatic techniques that Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides deploy to depict vengeful heroines in animal terms, by combining gender studies of the classical world, classical studies of animals and posthumanism. It rejects the anthropocentric and anthropomorphic views of previous classical scholars who have interpreted the animal-woman metaphor in revenge plots as a tragic expression of non-humanity. It argues instead that animal imagery was considered particularly effective to express the human contradictions of female vengeance in the theatre of Dionysus. The thesis investigates the metaphorical employment of the nightingale, the lioness and the snake in the tragic characterisation of women who claim compensation for the injuries suffered within and against their household. Chapter 1 is focused on the image of the nightingale in comparison with tragic heroines, who perform ritual lamentation to incite vengeance. Chapter 2 explores the lioness metaphor in the representation of tragic heroines, who through strength and protectiveness commit vengeance. Chapter 3 examines the metaphorical use of the snake in association with tragic heroines, who plan and inflict vengeance by deceit. Through the reconstruction of the metaphorical metamorphoses enacted by vengeful women into nightingales, lionesses and snakes, the thesis demonstrates that Attic dramatists would have provoked a tragic effect of pathos. Employed as a Dionysiac tool, animal imagery reveals the tragic humanity of avenging heroines whose voice, agency and deception cause nothing but suffering to their family, and inevitably to themselves.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Post-School Studies) / This study is located in engineering education at a South African university of technology, and is theorised using relational ontologies such as critical posthumanism, feminist new materialism and non-representational theory. It explores the potential of a digital storytelling intervention in an undergraduate geomatics diploma programme. Geomatics qualifications in South Africa are critiqued for their embedded humanism and subtle anthropocentrism despite attempts at post-apartheid curricular reform. Additionally, these qualifications are focused on technical content, and heavily influenced by Western knowledges.

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abstract: Modern and contemporary African American writers employ science fiction in order to recast ideas on past, present, and future black culture. This dissertation examines Afrofuturism’s cultural aesthetics, which appropriate devices from science fiction and fantasy in order to revise, interrogate, and re-examine historical events insufficiently treated by literary realism. The dissertation includes treatments of George Schuyler, Ishmael Reed, Octavia Butler, Colson Whitehead, Nalo Hopkinson, and Chicana/ofuturism. The original contribution of this research is to highlight how imagination of a posthuman world has made it possible for African American writers to envision how racial power can be re-configured and re-negotiated. Focusing on shifting racial dynamics caught up in the swirl of technological changes, this research illuminates a complex process of literary production in which black culture and identity have been continuously re-interpreted. In the post-war and post-Civil Rights Movement eras African American writers began reflecting on shifting racial dynamics in light of technological changes. This shift in which black experience became mechanized and digitized explains how technology became a source of new African American fiction. The relationships between humans and their external conditions appear in such futuristic themes as trans-human anamorphosis, cyberspace, and digital souls. These thematic devices, which explore humanity outside its phenotypic boundaries, provide African American writers with tools to demystify deterministic views of race. Afrofuturism has responded to the conceptual transformation of humanity with a race-specific scope, locating the presence of black culture in a high-tech world. Techno-scientific progress has provided important resources in contemporary theory, yet these theoretical foci too seldom have been drawn into critical race discourses. This discrepancy is due to techno-scientific progress having served as a tool for the legitimation of scientific racism under global capitalism for centuries. Responding to this critical lacuna, the dissertation highlights an under-explored field in which African American literature responds to techno-culture’s involvement in contemporary discussions of race. Rather than repeat nominal assumptions of Eurocentric modernity and its racist hegemony, this dissertation theorizes how modern techno-culture’s outcomes—such as information science, genetic engineering, and computer science—shape minority lives, and how minority groups appropriate these outcomes to enact their own liberation. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation English 2017

Studien syftar till att undersöka synliggörande av teknik och vilka möjligheter barnen ges till att utveckla sin förståelse för teknik i förskoleverksamheten. Studien är även avsedd att synliggöra vilken betydelse pedagogers kunskaper och medvetenhet kring teknik har samt hur detta påverkar val av teknikrelaterat material. Resultaten grundar sig på kvalitativa studier med barn och pedagoger. Barnen på en förskola observerades med hjälp av videoupptagning under sin fria lek för att dokumentera de intra-aktioner som sker. Därefter följde en fokusgruppsdiskussion med arbetslaget på samma förskola för att synliggöra pedagogernas kunskap och medvetenhet kring teknik. Studien utgår från två teorier, posthumanism och socialkonstruktionism. Det centrala inom posthumanismen är att människa och icke-människa står i en ömsesidig relation till varandra där olika aktörer hela tiden påverkar varandra genom vad som beskrivs som intra-aktioner. Det centrala i socialkonstruktionism är att människan skapar sociala relationer samt utvecklar sin identitet och sitt lärande i inter-aktioner med andra människor. Resultatet visar att pedagogernas medvetenhet och kunskap kring teknik är förhållandevis liten. Fokusgruppsdiskussionen bidrar dock till reflektioner som synliggör att viss kunskap finns. I slutet av diskussionen har pedagogerna utvecklat sitt sätt att tala om teknik som begrepp, innehåll samt undervisning. Resultatet visar att pedagogerna saknar en gemensam definition vad gäller teknikämnet och överhuvudtaget ett gemensamt sätt att tala om teknik, vilket skapar en osäkerhet och försvårar ett pedagogiskt arbete med ämnet bland barnen i förskolan. Resultatet visar att det finns gott om material i verksamheten som kan kopplas till teknik, vilket pedagogerna också är medvetna om. Däremot beskriver pedagogerna att osäkerheten kring hur de kan arbeta med material och miljö för att knyta an till teknik är stor, vilket gör att teknikundervisningen blir lidande.

Detta kandidatarbete är en undersökning av begreppet emergence och hur det kan användas i skapandet av digital interaktiv konst. Vi undersöker sambandet mellan designern och datorn, och hur användaren kan interagera med båda dessa för att bidra till och utforma skapandet.   För att demonstrera detta har vi skapat en simulation, som är tänkt att efterlikna tidigt mänskligt beteende på hög nivå: uppståndelsen av civilizationer, interaktion mellan folkgrupper, och utnyttjande av naturliga resurser. Vi diskuterar de etiska och politiska konsekvenserna som följer på skapandet av en sådan simulation, och vilken sorts interaktion vi främjar i vår design.

A presente pesquisa pretende examinar as possibilidades estéticas e subjetivas inerentes a máscaras pós-humanas. A fim de analisar a abordagem artística da face, selecionamos algumas obras de Lygia Clark, Hyungkoo Lee, France Cadet e Sterling Crispin para estudos de caso. Estes, destacados nos capítulos um, dois, três e quatro, nos permitem analisar de forma detalhada, trabalhos que esclarecem indutivamente a dinâmica da situação investigada. Em diálogo com os estudos de caso, é conduzida pesquisa de laboratório em que a face é também elaborada como máscara artística no âmbito da produção da pesquisadora, criada a partir da confluência entre meios artesanais, de produção de massa e meios digitais, ao gerar modelos tridimensionais e sua consequente representação física por meio da fabricação digital. Agrupamos as obras de acordo com vínculos aos procedimentos artísticos de recriação, dissimulação e simulação. Determinados assuntos surgidos das análises das obras ganharam embasamento teórico por meio de tópicos conceituais que discutem aspectos estéticos e subjetivos. Para a realização do estudo, desenvolvemos pesquisa bibliográfica, estudo de caso das obras dos artistas selecionados, pesquisa em laboratório e participações em congressos e mostras ligadas à Arte Tecnológica. Os resultados subjetivos e perceptivos da manipulação da face na arte tecnológica refletem o questionamento acerca da construção de singularidades e as transformações na concepção de ser humano. Assim, intenciona-se contribuir com o meio acadêmico, a sociedade e as artes na discussão sobre as subjetividades emergentes em contexto tecnológico. / This research intends to examine the aesthetic and subjective possibilities inherent to posthuman masks. In order to analyze the artistic approach of the face, we selected some works by Lygia Clark, Hyungkoo Lee, France Cadet and Sterling Crispin for case studies. These, highlighted in chapters one, two, three and four, allow us to analyze in detail works that clarify inductively the dynamics of the situation investigated. In dialogue with the case studies a laboratory research is conducted where the face is also fabricated as an artistic mask within the scope of the researcher\'s production, created from the confluence of artisanal, mass production and digital media, generating three-dimensional models and its consequent physical representation through digital fabrication. We grouped the works in accordance with the artistic procedures of recreation, dissimulation and simulation. Certain issues arising from the analysis of the works have gained theoretical basis through conceptual topics that discuss aesthetic and subjective aspects. For the study, we developed bibliographic research, case study of the works of selected artists, laboratory research and participation in congresses and exhibitions related to Technological Art. The subjective and perceptive results of the manipulation of the face in the technological art reflect the questioning about the construction of singularities and the changes in the concept of human being. Thus, it intends to contribute to academia, society and the arts in the discussion about emerging subjectivities in technological context.

Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley and the characters within, tell a prominent story of the posthuman condition in a society where humanist thought is the only conception of subjectivity. The use of not only posthuman studies, but more specifically studies including subjectivity was needed, in order to analyse the relationship between the humanist and the posthuman subjects. Theories of posthuman subjectivity and subjectivity by Rosi Braidotti and Michel Foucault were used in order to examine the posthuman condition of “Frankenstein’s monster” and the role of humanist vs. posthuman subjectivity between Victor Frankenstein and the monster. The tension between Victor and the monster was analysed in order to investigate the monster’s struggle at acquiring subjectivity in a posthuman state, which revealed why it is impossible for the humanist and posthuman subject to peacefully coexist.

Detta kandidatarbete undersöker hur digitala spel kan skapas med någon annans synsätt. Vi ville se vad som hände om vi försökte göra spel på ett posthumanistiskt sätt och om detta hade förändrat något. Det har uppkommit speciella möjligheter och konsekvenser under processen, det har även dykt upp frågor. En av dessa frågor är hur skapandet av varelser inom digitala spel kan utföras. Likväl har det under projektet skett diskussioner och tester runt hur ett verktyg för detta ändamål skulle kunna fungera. Vårt arbete resulterade i en spelprototyp som fokuserar på tillblivelse. Med denna som utgångspunkt diskuterade vi sedan möjligheter och konsekvenser med våra speltestare. Undersökningen visar att det vi designat inte bara är en varelseskapare, utan det kan också bli något mer tillsammans med spelarna. This Bachelor Thesis examines how digital games can be created with someone else's point of view. We wanted to see what would happen if we tried to make games in a post humanistic manner and whether this would change anything. The process has raised special opportunities and consequences, new questions have also emerged. One of these questions is how the creation of the creatures within digital games can be performed. During the project there have been discussions and tests around how a tool with this purpose could work. Our work resulted in a game prototype that focuses on creation. With this as a starting point, we then discussed its possibilities and implications together with our game testers. The analysis shows that what we have designed is not only a creature creator, but it can also be something more along with the players.