With a focus on multiracial perspectives on race, region, and sexuality, Quest for Blackness interrogates the efforts of diverse black subjects to transcend the objectifying limits of the white gaze and the effects of internalized hatred and destructiveness. To clarify the tenuous shift from object to subject, the first two chapters of this dissertation examine the formation of African American subjectivity within the prism of the white gaze, as it takes shape in novels by Eudora Welty, Lewis Nordan, Toni Morrison, and Bebe Moore Campbell. The following chapters probe the pernicious effects on black psyches that develop when African Americans unwittingly internalize any part of the white gaze. Tackling the controversial discourse that comedian Bill Cosby re-ignited with his comments in 2004 on the responsibilities of the black poor in improving their own lives, Quest for Blackness engages fully in the debate that erupted after Cosby's speech. Taking a stand, alongside other African American voices in literature, politics, and social activism, this study not only recognizes the interrelated issue of white racism and economic inequality but also calls for greater black accountability in addressing the pathologies that affect black communities. In airing dirty laundry, African Americans only strengthen their pursuit of equality and lasting, meaningful agency, a point that Z Z Packer, Alice Walker, and others powerfully demonstrate in their fiction. / acase@tulane.edu

While Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray depicts the quintessential literary portrait endowed with uncanny life and movement, dozens of such magic portraits are featured in Victorian fiction. From the ravishing picture of the title character in Mary Elizabeth Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret to the coveted portrait of a Romantic poet in Henry James's The Aspern Papers, imagined portraits in these texts serve as conduits of desire and fear--windows into passions and repressions that reveal not only the images' external effects but their relation to the unconscious of their viewers. My dissertation turns a critical eye on this gallery of ekphrastic pictures--those not actually visible to the reader but rather visualizable through verbal description--to argue that the meditations on representation and desire that these novels and stories perform not only anticipate but augment theories of the image and the gaze developed primarily since the advent of cinema. Though the dissertation benefits from film theory's models of visual exchange, the distinctions between these portraits and images in film open up fertile analytical terrain. Ekphrastic magic portraits provide a unique opportunity to delve into the intersecting realms of word painting and image perception, the optics of desire and subjectivity, to advance critical discourses in visual studies that are framed both historically and theoretically. Using psychoanalytic and narratological methodologies, particularly those relevant to feminist and queer image theory, "The Ekphrastic Fantastic" demonstrates how the fictional visual exchanges on display in magic portrait stories elucidate various power struggles regarding sexuality and narrative structuring. These literary pictures thereby provide new access to the social and artistic commentaries that often subtend Victorian fiction. Each chapter considers three primary texts and the branch of image theory most relevant to their deployment of magic portraits. Laura Mulvey's foundational essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," provides the point of departure in the first chapter, which looks at Charles Dickens's Bleak House, Braddon's Lady Audley's Secret, and Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White. The second chapter addresses Margaret Oliphant's "The Portrait," Thomas Hardy's "An Imaginative Woman," and James's The Aspern Papers with further feminist insights from Vivian Sobchack and Teresa de Lauretis. The final chapter determines the relationship of principles of visual representation and narrative production of the Aesthetic movement to magic portraits in Walter Pater's "Sebastian van Storck," Vernon Lee's "Oke of Okehurst," and Wilde's Dorian Gray, particularly as they relate to the nascent medium of cinema and the theories that soon as well as later arose to account for the impact of its kinetic mirage. The arc of my argument emphasizes how, as the Victorian period advances, the portraits become increasingly animate and subversive in their challenges to patriarchal gender norms and narrative formulas. In this way, they become the mechanisms by which new models of psycho-sexual relations can be expressed and new social and narrative systems can emerge.

Though Horacio Quiroga is better known for his jungle tales, he was also a prolific film critic. Writing in the early days of silent cinema, Quiroga channeled his love for the new art into a series of four short stories about film: "Miss Dorothy Phillips, mi esposa" (1919), "El espectro" (1921), "El puritano" (1926), and "El vampiro" (1927). These stories not only reveal Quiroga's passion for the cinema, but also showcase the power of film to affect the spectator. The theoretical basis of my study comes from the Deleuzian concept of affect, being defined as the invisible force or intensity which exists in bodies and can also be transmitted between bodies that have differing capacities for acting on each other. In the case of the cinema, the film and the spectator are the two bodies that participate in this transmission of intensities. In the first chapter, I discuss how "El puritano" reveals that film's resurrected images can be more powerful than the originals. Then, I analyze "El espectro," which serves as an example of how film's mimetic qualities increase its power to affect spectators and produce in them visceral reactions. Particularly striking in this story is the filmic gaze of an on-screen actor, a gaze which transmits affect to the other characters. In the second chapter, I analyze "Miss Dorothy Phillips, mi esposa," particularly how it theorizes the erotic gaze of filmed actresses. Then I discuss "El vampiro," in which I study the relationship of two men with the filmed image of a beautiful Hollywood actress. In the story, an inventor is able to "move" film in such a way as to create a spectral woman who can interact with others. However, by the end of the story it becomes clear that it is the film—personified by this spectral woman—that holds the true power in this relationship of bodies.

This Exegesis and accompanying artworks are the culmination of research conducted into the existence of surveillance in virtual worlds. A panoptical model has been used, and its premise tested through the extension into these communal spaces. Issues such as data security, personal and corporate privacy have been investigated, as has the use of art as a propositional mode. This Exegesis contains existing and new theoretical arguments and observations that have aided the development of research outcomes; a discussion of action research as a methodology; and questionnaire outcomes assisting in understanding player perceptions and concerns. A series of artworks were completed during the research to aid in understanding the nature of virtual surveillance; as a method to examine outcomes; and as an experiential interface for viewers of the research. The artworks investigate a series of surveillance perspectives including parental gaze, machine surveillance and self-surveillance. The outcomes include considerations into the influence surveillance has on player behaviour, security issues pertaining to the extension of corporations into virtual worlds, the acceptance of surveillance by virtual communities, and the merits of applying artworks as proposition.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

Masculinity is an increasingly prominent and important issue in debates within feminism, literary studies and visual theory. This study intervenes in and contributes to such debates by analysing an emerging group of Australian women’s fictions (published between 1998 and 2002) which focus on male characters and, in particular, on the description and narrative potential of their bodies. The majority of these texts, and the ones that are explored in this thesis – namely, Jillian Watkinson’s The Architect, Georgia Blain’s The Blind Eye, Mireille Juchau’s Machines for Feeling, Fiona Capp’s Last of the Sane Days, Sarah Myles’s Transplanted and Wendy Scarfe’s Miranda – share two preoccupations. Firstly, male characters bodies’ are almost always damaged or suffering in some way; secondly, the ability (or inability) of female characters to look at these bodies is repeatedly foregrounded. I argue that the interactions between male characters’ bodies and female characters’ gazes function in complex ways both to confirm and to challenge patriarchal constructions of masculinity and male corporeality. Specifically, this occurs in relation to the engagement of each text with popular discourses of feminism and masculinity crisis, discourses that emerge and interact in complex and often contradictory ways in depictions of male visibility and exposure. While my approach is generally feminist, it is also fiction-centred. Thus, I draw on a variety of theoretical perspectives, including literary theory, masculinity studies, visual theory, history, sociology and philosophy, in order to unpack and engage with these contemporary Australian women’s fictions. Paradoxically, one of the main consequences of this fiction-centred approach is a reengagement with and a rethinking of theoretical concepts emerging from psychoanalytic feminist film theory. In a remarkably consistent and explicitly pedagogical way, these fictions explore notions of objectification and dichotomisation, especially as they are elucidated in Laura Mulvey’s analysis of Hollywood narrative cinema. Objectification is overwhelmingly aligned with oppressive power structures and identified as problematic, and the first half of this thesis explores the novels’ critiques of this mode of visual interaction. The second half investigates the alternatives to objectification imagined in these fictions. While, upon closer consideration, some of these alternatives recapture male and female characters within traditional patriarchal power relations, others enable a rethinking of both women’s vision and desire, and men’s subjectivity, visibility and desirability.

<p>Denna uppsats syftar till att kvalitativt undersöka hur kvinnor porträtteras i fem</p><p>utvalda avsnitt av The Hills (MTV), med fokus på deras beteende och uppträdande i</p><p>frågor som karriär, utseende och relationer till män. Detta undersöks med hjälp av ett</p><p>analysschema som har utformats utifrån Keith Selbys och Ron Cowderys</p><p>analysmodell för att studera television.</p><p> </p><p>Undersökningen vilar på en genusteoretisk grund och teorier som används är bland</p><p>annat R.W. Connells hegemoniska maskulinitet, Yvonne Hirdmans genuskontrakt,</p><p>Laura Mulveys ”the male gaze” och en vidare utveckling av Foucaults teori om ”the</p><p>panopticon”. Detta kompletteras med forskning av bland annat Rosalind Gill, Angela</p><p>McRobbie och Hillevi Ganetz.</p><p> </p><p>I min analys framkommer att det förekommer väldigt få skildringar av kvinnor vars</p><p>beteende utmanar en traditionell syn på kvinnligt uppförande. Vidare betonas</p><p>kvinnors utseende starkt och karaktärerna visar ett flertal gånger fokus på äktenskap.</p><p>Sammantaget leder analysen fram till en slutsats att kvinnor i The Hills inom samtliga</p><p>undersökta områden till stor del skildras på ett sätt som befäster en stereotyp</p><p>genusstruktur.</p>

<p>Gaze tracking means to detect and follow the direction in which a person looks. This can be used in for instance human-computer interaction. Most existing systems illuminate the eye with IR-light, possibly damaging the eye. The motivation of this thesis is to develop a truly non-intrusive gaze tracking system, using only a digital camera, e.g. a web camera.</p><p>The approach is to detect and track different facial features, using varying image analysis techniques. These features will serve as inputs to a neural net, which will be trained with a set of predetermined gaze tracking series. The output is coordinates on the screen.</p><p>The evaluation is done with a measure of accuracy and the result is an average angular deviation of two to four degrees, depending on the quality of the image sequence. To get better and more robust results, a higher image quality from the digital camera is needed.</p>

<p>Klinisk blick är en term som frekvent återkommer under sjuksköterskeutbildningen och i klinisk verksamhet. Den återfinns ofta i samband med klinisk bedömning och som</p><p>en övergripande beskrivning av en patient. Endast antydda betydelser har framkommit och då tätt knutna till andra termer och processer. Syftet med studien var att</p><p>undersöka komponenterna intuition och tyst kunskap som delar i sjuksköterskans kliniska blick. Studien genomfördes som en litteraturstudie där 17 vetenskapliga artiklar granskades. Resultatet visar att intuition och tyst kunskap är huvudkomponenter i sjuksköterskans kliniska blick. Intuition verkar som en länk mellan kognitiva, affektiva och perceptuella processer. Tyst kunskap sammanbinder intuition och teoretisk kunskap. Intuition och tyst kunskap utvecklas över tid och baseras på personlighet, erfarenhet och teoretisk kunskap. Förslag till vidare forskning är att försöka utveckla</p><p>och specificera termen och förstå de bakomliggande processerna bättre med syftet att utbilda och stödja sjuksköterskan i hennes professionella utveckling.</p>