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The aim of this dissertation is to reflect on technologies of the self, a term coined by Michel Foucault to study western practices of self-formation. Influenced by his work on subjectivity and by Science and Technology Studies (STS), I explore two forms of meditation – Vipassana meditation in the tradition of S.N. Goenka and Thich Nhat Hanh’s practices of mindfulness – in order to analyze the entanglements between technologies, associations and subjectivity. Two research questions guided this study. First, how do Vipassana and Zen assemblages bring forth subjective transformations? Second, what are the politics of meditation practice, considering that Vipassana and Zen perform particular paradigms of subjectivity and aim at transforming the “social”? In order to address these questions, I relied on qualitative research methods, developing a multifaceted methodology that included participant observation at four meditation retreats, semi-structured interviews with meditators, the analysis of relevant literature and my own personal experiences as a beginner. I argue that the mechanisms of subjectification employed by meditation rely on two main devices: the transformation of habitual webs of associations, including couplings between selves, other humans, nonhumans and spaces and the installation of new automatisms. Vipassana and Zen technologies invite subjects to become aware of particular automatisms – regular ways of eating, sitting, walking and breathing - and to direct their attention towards them in novel ways, installing specific ways of managing their selves (stopping and breathing whenever they hear the sounds of bells; developing an attitude of equanimity when they are looking for sensations in their bodies). Vipassana and Zen are mediators that generate new experiences and ways of being informed by meditation, as well as a number of social applications that rely on the paradigmatic changes enacted by these practices. Informed by the dualism between modern and nonmodern, I argue that Zen and Vipassana can be understood as technologies of the nonmodern self (Pickering, 3 2010), suspending the dualism between body and mind, self and others, humans and nonhumans, contributing towards the establishment of nondual paradigms of selfhood and innovative forms of social organization that include new ways of performing human reformation, social action and humanenvironment couplings. The theoretical contributions of this dissertation are threefold. First, I want to extend current STS scholarly work on the self. Second, I want to contribute towards a post-humanist understanding of meditation assemblages. Finally, I am informed by Michel Foucault’s insights on technologies of the self to study meditation, but instead of focusing on the history or genealogy of the western self, I analyze a number of devices of subjectification mobilized to operate subjective changes and to transform the social.

This study investigated why and how students, who enrolled in fully-online distance course, participated in online activities external to the formal online course (OAEOC) at any point during or after the online course. For this research, OAEOC is defined as any activity pursued by students within an online environment during or after the course that does not take place within their teacher-sponsored online course “home” (such as a Moodle or Blackboard). This research occurred within a fully-online, five-week course that trained journalists in digital tools. Data included: (a) 144 researcher-generated interpretive memos based on activities within the course’s online discussion forums and student chats and (b) 11 student interviews. Results showed that student interactions in course discussion forums were critically important for developing connections between students, which in turn, supported the initiation of online activities external to the online course. During the course, students posted information about their online identities and created a Facebook group and Twitter list, which facilitated online activities external to the course. Data from interviews showed that those students participating in OAEOC did so for social reasons and to continue conversing with classmates. Students who did not participate in OAEOCs indicated work schedule conflicts, lack of interest, and unawareness of the OAEOCs prevented their participation. During the course, OAEOC participants discussed topics related to the course content. However, once the course concluded, OAEOC participants started discussing more personal and professional topics. The phenomenon studied is new to online distance education and holds the potential to extend the online course experience and support lifelong learning. / text

In mid- to late-1960s America and Britain, against the backdrop of escalating socio-political disappointment, countercultural ideologies and fantasies of a musical youth dovetailed with improvements in recording technologies to generate new sonic languages of limning in sound utopian pastoral spaces to which recordists and listeners could escape, virtually. Seeking alternative spaces that their alternative identities could more comfortably inhabit became a central project of many progressive groups and individuals, often, but not always, hailing from middle-class white society. The cultural and musical trends did eventually have a global sway. Coeval advances in sound recording and reproduction technologies made musical recordings a major avenue through which the sought spaces were limned and even materialized sonically, but other media, especially album cover art and film in conjunction with musical soundtracks, provided additional avenues for pastoral spatial projects of this generation and afford us ancillary resources for better understanding these projects. While the specific utopian spatial projects and the underlying ideologies of musicians working in various branches of country rock, soft rock, progressive country, progressive bluegrass, art rock, Afrocentric avant-garde jazz, and proto-New Age music were not always exactly the same, there were considerable overlaps in the societal sources of their disaffections, the wellsprings of their inspiration, and in the textural sonic languages they developed in the recording studio. Unlike music with overtly spatial projects, the sonic aspects of music that subtly captures a hyper-real sense of the natural have remained underconsidered and their contribution to the aesthetic and psychological impact of music has slipped by under the radar of most listeners' conscious attention. This dissertation, then, is an attempt to analyze the subtle acoustic and musical communicative codes devised by musicians and recordists that do inform later music. Through close listening and textual analysis, this dissertation identifies the different levels at which spatial allusions are encoded into a musical product. Ethnographic interviews help distinguish between deliberate manipulations of studio technology and responses based in tacit understandings thereof. An overall cross disciplinary approach, borrowing especially from acoustics and psychoacoustics, aided me substantially with the analyses. / text