Kathrin Yacavone
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- September 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780197266670
- eISBN:
- 9780191905391
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197266670.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
Despite his infamous thesis of the ‘death of the author’ in the 1960s, in the last decade of his life, Roland Barthes developed a conception of authorship that brings together textual and ...
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Despite his infamous thesis of the ‘death of the author’ in the 1960s, in the last decade of his life, Roland Barthes developed a conception of authorship that brings together textual and biographical realities, coining the terms biographème and biographologue to describe the relation between the author’s life and work. This was accompanied by a renewed and related interest in photography, as evidenced by his illustrated Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975) and La Chambre claire (1980). Taking this conjunction of authorship and photography as its starting point, this chapter juxtaposes Barthes’s understandings of the author with the evolving photographic iconography of his own authorial persona. It shows that theoretical reflection on authorship was already closely linked with photography and the visual representation of the writer figure in the early Michelet par lui-même (1954), before exploring how this relationship becomes more pronounced and self-reflexive in the 1970s. Analysis of photographic portraits of Barthes, focused on their iconography and style, reveals that the role photography has played in Barthes’s posthumous reception has followed its own dynamics, related to, yet transcending, his highly intentional photographic self-construction.Less
Despite his infamous thesis of the ‘death of the author’ in the 1960s, in the last decade of his life, Roland Barthes developed a conception of authorship that brings together textual and biographical realities, coining the terms biographème and biographologue to describe the relation between the author’s life and work. This was accompanied by a renewed and related interest in photography, as evidenced by his illustrated Roland Barthes par Roland Barthes (1975) and La Chambre claire (1980). Taking this conjunction of authorship and photography as its starting point, this chapter juxtaposes Barthes’s understandings of the author with the evolving photographic iconography of his own authorial persona. It shows that theoretical reflection on authorship was already closely linked with photography and the visual representation of the writer figure in the early Michelet par lui-même (1954), before exploring how this relationship becomes more pronounced and self-reflexive in the 1970s. Analysis of photographic portraits of Barthes, focused on their iconography and style, reveals that the role photography has played in Barthes’s posthumous reception has followed its own dynamics, related to, yet transcending, his highly intentional photographic self-construction.
SUSAN BLACKMORE
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780197264195
- eISBN:
- 9780191734540
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197264195.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter determines the existence of human imagination and creativity through the concept of human culture and meme. It aims to rebut the two assumptions governing creative imagination in humans. ...
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This chapter determines the existence of human imagination and creativity through the concept of human culture and meme. It aims to rebut the two assumptions governing creative imagination in humans. The first assumption suggests that imagination evolved because humans are biologically adaptive. The second assumption claims that the existence of consciousness is the driving force behind creativity and imagination. In this chapter, it is argued that human creativity is the result of evolutionary processes based on memes rather than genes. This concept suggests that if hominid ancestors of humans are capable of imitation, a new set of replicators are set loose driving human minds to become better at copying, storing, and recombining memes. This coevolution of memes and their copying machinery led to the modern imaginative minds which evolved not because they are biologically adaptive but because they are advantageous for the memes. Hence the driving force behind human imagination is therefore not consciousness but aevolutionary algorithm which function is not biological but memetic.Less
This chapter determines the existence of human imagination and creativity through the concept of human culture and meme. It aims to rebut the two assumptions governing creative imagination in humans. The first assumption suggests that imagination evolved because humans are biologically adaptive. The second assumption claims that the existence of consciousness is the driving force behind creativity and imagination. In this chapter, it is argued that human creativity is the result of evolutionary processes based on memes rather than genes. This concept suggests that if hominid ancestors of humans are capable of imitation, a new set of replicators are set loose driving human minds to become better at copying, storing, and recombining memes. This coevolution of memes and their copying machinery led to the modern imaginative minds which evolved not because they are biologically adaptive but because they are advantageous for the memes. Hence the driving force behind human imagination is therefore not consciousness but aevolutionary algorithm which function is not biological but memetic.
Robert Aunger (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780192632449
- eISBN:
- 9780191670473
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192632449.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling The Meme Machine re-awakened the debate over the highly controversial field of memetics. In the past couple of years, there has been an ...
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The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling The Meme Machine re-awakened the debate over the highly controversial field of memetics. In the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of interest in ‘memes’. The one thing noticeably missing though, has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept regarded by many as scientifically suspect. This book pits intellectuals (both supporters and opponents of meme theory) against each other to battle it out and state their case. With a foreword by Daniel Dennett, and contributions from Dan Sperber, David Hull, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field and for future research.Less
The publication in 1998 of Susan Blackmore's bestselling The Meme Machine re-awakened the debate over the highly controversial field of memetics. In the past couple of years, there has been an explosion of interest in ‘memes’. The one thing noticeably missing though, has been any kind of proper debate over the validity of a concept regarded by many as scientifically suspect. This book pits intellectuals (both supporters and opponents of meme theory) against each other to battle it out and state their case. With a foreword by Daniel Dennett, and contributions from Dan Sperber, David Hull, Robert Boyd, Susan Blackmore, Henry Plotkin, and others, the result is a debate that will perhaps mark a turning point for the field and for future research.
Roger Pearson
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159179
- eISBN:
- 9780191673535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159179.003.0011
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Poetry
The obvious way to begin reading ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-m ême’ is in terms of Mallarmé's own commentary. Many critics have thought that the scene which the poet describes in his letter to Cazalis ...
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The obvious way to begin reading ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-m ême’ is in terms of Mallarmé's own commentary. Many critics have thought that the scene which the poet describes in his letter to Cazalis is the origin of the suggestive ‘décor / De l'absence’ mentioned in the poem itself. But Mallarmé says only that his sonnet ‘me semble se prêter à une eau-forte […]’: that is, he had already written it before receiving Cazalis's request and has decided to extract it from a projected work on ‘la Parole’ because it lends itself more or less to a volume requiring poems which might suitably be illustrated by etchings. Mallarmé's description is offered only as an ‘exemple’ of a possible picture. Instead he is adamant that the poem may have no meaning at all in a conventional, representational sense; it is ‘inverse’, he remarks, indicating that here is a poem born of itself. Such meaning as it may contain ‘est évoqué par un mirage interne des mots mêmes’: it is a ‘sonnet nul et se réfléchissant de toutes les façons’.Less
The obvious way to begin reading ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-m ême’ is in terms of Mallarmé's own commentary. Many critics have thought that the scene which the poet describes in his letter to Cazalis is the origin of the suggestive ‘décor / De l'absence’ mentioned in the poem itself. But Mallarmé says only that his sonnet ‘me semble se prêter à une eau-forte […]’: that is, he had already written it before receiving Cazalis's request and has decided to extract it from a projected work on ‘la Parole’ because it lends itself more or less to a volume requiring poems which might suitably be illustrated by etchings. Mallarmé's description is offered only as an ‘exemple’ of a possible picture. Instead he is adamant that the poem may have no meaning at all in a conventional, representational sense; it is ‘inverse’, he remarks, indicating that here is a poem born of itself. Such meaning as it may contain ‘est évoqué par un mirage interne des mots mêmes’: it is a ‘sonnet nul et se réfléchissant de toutes les façons’.
Roger Pearson
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198159179
- eISBN:
- 9780191673535
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198159179.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Poetry
Mallarmé's apparent ‘return’ to poetry in the summer of 1868 after two years of crisis was marked not only by ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’ but also by ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’, an ...
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Mallarmé's apparent ‘return’ to poetry in the summer of 1868 after two years of crisis was marked not only by ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’ but also by ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’, an octosyllabic sonnet which he sent to Bonaparte Wyse sixteen days earlier. Just as his expressed dissatisfaction with certain parts of ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’ this may have led him immediately to revise it, so too he rewrote ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’ almost at once and, in the draft which survives (possibly from 1869), entitled it ‘Alternative’. The poem was revised again and appeared untitled as ‘Quelle soie aux baumes de temps’ in 1885. All three versions of ‘Quelle soie aux baumes de temps’ are difficult to access, and they have received rather less critical attention than many of Mallarmé's poems. If one considers that the first was written at approximately the same time as ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’, then it may be that this poem also concerns the poet's new-found poetic faith. Much less complex and ingenious than ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’, ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’ may in fact be its direct counterpart. Essentially, it would seem, the poet is describing the temptation presented by his beloved's hair as a source of solace in the world of objects.Less
Mallarmé's apparent ‘return’ to poetry in the summer of 1868 after two years of crisis was marked not only by ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’ but also by ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’, an octosyllabic sonnet which he sent to Bonaparte Wyse sixteen days earlier. Just as his expressed dissatisfaction with certain parts of ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’ this may have led him immediately to revise it, so too he rewrote ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’ almost at once and, in the draft which survives (possibly from 1869), entitled it ‘Alternative’. The poem was revised again and appeared untitled as ‘Quelle soie aux baumes de temps’ in 1885. All three versions of ‘Quelle soie aux baumes de temps’ are difficult to access, and they have received rather less critical attention than many of Mallarmé's poems. If one considers that the first was written at approximately the same time as ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’, then it may be that this poem also concerns the poet's new-found poetic faith. Much less complex and ingenious than ‘Sonnet allégorique de lui-même’, ‘De l'orient passé des Temps’ may in fact be its direct counterpart. Essentially, it would seem, the poet is describing the temptation presented by his beloved's hair as a source of solace in the world of objects.
Torben Grodal
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195371314
- eISBN:
- 9780199870585
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195371314.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This chapter argues that cultural diversity and cultural development are compatible with the assumption of a biological human nature that provides human universals. It shows that children’s films are ...
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This chapter argues that cultural diversity and cultural development are compatible with the assumption of a biological human nature that provides human universals. It shows that children’s films are shaped both by innate emotional needs and cognitive constraints and by specific cultural norms, using examples from Finding Nemo, Spirited Away, Lassie, Bambi, and others. It refutes the blank slate theory of the human mind—the strong version of culturalism—and also the arguments for strong biologism. It discusses the mechanisms of cultural variation and also those that promote cultural stability and universality, including a discussion of functional bundles of universally salient story elements. The effect of some of these mechanisms on genre patterns is illustrated, and an alternative, functionalist explanation is provided to Altman’s postmodern genre theory. Finally, the chapter argues against monolithic theories that claim that given periods or cultures—for instance “modernity”—can be characterized by means of homogeneous features, proposing instead that cultures are time-spaces in which many different forms exist and interact, so that heterogeneity is not a property of modernity, but typical of culture in general.Less
This chapter argues that cultural diversity and cultural development are compatible with the assumption of a biological human nature that provides human universals. It shows that children’s films are shaped both by innate emotional needs and cognitive constraints and by specific cultural norms, using examples from Finding Nemo, Spirited Away, Lassie, Bambi, and others. It refutes the blank slate theory of the human mind—the strong version of culturalism—and also the arguments for strong biologism. It discusses the mechanisms of cultural variation and also those that promote cultural stability and universality, including a discussion of functional bundles of universally salient story elements. The effect of some of these mechanisms on genre patterns is illustrated, and an alternative, functionalist explanation is provided to Altman’s postmodern genre theory. Finally, the chapter argues against monolithic theories that claim that given periods or cultures—for instance “modernity”—can be characterized by means of homogeneous features, proposing instead that cultures are time-spaces in which many different forms exist and interact, so that heterogeneity is not a property of modernity, but typical of culture in general.
David Brin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199738571
- eISBN:
- 9780199918669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738571.003.0175
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
Modern Western society disavows the notion that many ideas are inherently dangerous or toxic, that people are easily misled, and that an elite should protect or guide gullible masses toward correct ...
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Modern Western society disavows the notion that many ideas are inherently dangerous or toxic, that people are easily misled, and that an elite should protect or guide gullible masses toward correct thinking. However, virtually every other culture held the older, prevalent belief in “toxic memes.” As yet, there is no decisive proof supporting one side over the other. Occasionally, altruism among or between species that share only remote genetics seems to arise, unleashed by full bellies and sympathy, along (sometimes) with brains that are capable of seeing enlightened self-interest in the long-term survival of an entire world. Western assumptions color the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), just as previous “first contact” events were driven by the cultural assumptions of past eras. Especially pervasive—and unwarranted—is the belief that all advanced civilizations will automatically be altruistic.Less
Modern Western society disavows the notion that many ideas are inherently dangerous or toxic, that people are easily misled, and that an elite should protect or guide gullible masses toward correct thinking. However, virtually every other culture held the older, prevalent belief in “toxic memes.” As yet, there is no decisive proof supporting one side over the other. Occasionally, altruism among or between species that share only remote genetics seems to arise, unleashed by full bellies and sympathy, along (sometimes) with brains that are capable of seeing enlightened self-interest in the long-term survival of an entire world. Western assumptions color the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence (SETI), just as previous “first contact” events were driven by the cultural assumptions of past eras. Especially pervasive—and unwarranted—is the belief that all advanced civilizations will automatically be altruistic.
Darren E. Irwin
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199794393
- eISBN:
- 9780199919338
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199794393.003.0009
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General, Philosophy of Science
No discussion of culture would be complete without considering learned behaviors in non-human animals. This chapter gives a brief overview of cultural phenomena in a variety of vertebrates, focusing ...
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No discussion of culture would be complete without considering learned behaviors in non-human animals. This chapter gives a brief overview of cultural phenomena in a variety of vertebrates, focusing on songbirds. Because they are amenable to both observation and experiment, songbirds provide excellent systems for studying culture. There is abundant evidence that variation in song is influenced by both genes and learning, and that song can play an important role in mate choice. Various forms of greenish warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides) provide an example in which cultural evolution may have contributed to the evolution of two species from one. It is shown that: song structure differs greatly between two northern forms, which do not interbreed where they co-occur; song structure changes gradually around a ring to the south that connects the northern forms; singing behavior is relatively simple in the south but becomes increasingly complex to the north; and song varies along independent axes of complexity in the western and eastern south-north clines. This pattern was produced through an interaction between cultural and genetic evolution in response to changing levels of sexual selection.Less
No discussion of culture would be complete without considering learned behaviors in non-human animals. This chapter gives a brief overview of cultural phenomena in a variety of vertebrates, focusing on songbirds. Because they are amenable to both observation and experiment, songbirds provide excellent systems for studying culture. There is abundant evidence that variation in song is influenced by both genes and learning, and that song can play an important role in mate choice. Various forms of greenish warbler (Phylloscopus trochiloides) provide an example in which cultural evolution may have contributed to the evolution of two species from one. It is shown that: song structure differs greatly between two northern forms, which do not interbreed where they co-occur; song structure changes gradually around a ring to the south that connects the northern forms; singing behavior is relatively simple in the south but becomes increasingly complex to the north; and song varies along independent axes of complexity in the western and eastern south-north clines. This pattern was produced through an interaction between cultural and genetic evolution in response to changing levels of sexual selection.
Robert Aunger
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780192632449
- eISBN:
- 9780191670473
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192632449.003.0011
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter tries to make sense of what has gone before memetics, and to find where there might be grounds for coming down on one side or another of the key issues identified by the authors of the ...
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This chapter tries to make sense of what has gone before memetics, and to find where there might be grounds for coming down on one side or another of the key issues identified by the authors of the preceding chapters. The comments are assembled by academic discipline, as it is from these varying perspectives that problems naturally come into view. It brings out that meme promoters tend to be biological in background or inclination, while the more critical voices dominating the later chapters usually come from the field of social sciences, especially psychology. It also follows the same order in setting out the comments presented. It is generally stated that it may be more impudent to comply with the progress of evolutionary cultural studies more broadly, rather than the meme idea intrinsically, for a true indication of who is winning the battle to explain culture.Less
This chapter tries to make sense of what has gone before memetics, and to find where there might be grounds for coming down on one side or another of the key issues identified by the authors of the preceding chapters. The comments are assembled by academic discipline, as it is from these varying perspectives that problems naturally come into view. It brings out that meme promoters tend to be biological in background or inclination, while the more critical voices dominating the later chapters usually come from the field of social sciences, especially psychology. It also follows the same order in setting out the comments presented. It is generally stated that it may be more impudent to comply with the progress of evolutionary cultural studies more broadly, rather than the meme idea intrinsically, for a true indication of who is winning the battle to explain culture.
Paul Thagard
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- March 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190678739
- eISBN:
- 9780190686451
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190678739.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Models and Architectures
For the semantic pointer theory of mind, the bearers of knowledge are not abstract propositions but rather patterns of neural firing that constitute mental representations, including concepts, ...
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For the semantic pointer theory of mind, the bearers of knowledge are not abstract propositions but rather patterns of neural firing that constitute mental representations, including concepts, beliefs, nonverbal rules, images, and emotions. This neurocognitive perspective suggests new answers for questions about the generation of candidates for knowledge and their relations to the world via sensory-motor interactions. Semantic pointers support knowledge that beliefs are true or false, how to do things using multimodal rules, and of things via sensory-motor experience. The Semantic Pointer Architecture meshes well with coherence-based justification that abandons foundational certainty for fallible attempts to fit diverse elements of knowledge into the best overall explanation. Knowledge has important social dimensions.Less
For the semantic pointer theory of mind, the bearers of knowledge are not abstract propositions but rather patterns of neural firing that constitute mental representations, including concepts, beliefs, nonverbal rules, images, and emotions. This neurocognitive perspective suggests new answers for questions about the generation of candidates for knowledge and their relations to the world via sensory-motor interactions. Semantic pointers support knowledge that beliefs are true or false, how to do things using multimodal rules, and of things via sensory-motor experience. The Semantic Pointer Architecture meshes well with coherence-based justification that abandons foundational certainty for fallible attempts to fit diverse elements of knowledge into the best overall explanation. Knowledge has important social dimensions.
Irene J. F. de Jong
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780748680108
- eISBN:
- 9780748697007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748680108.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Greek, Roman, and Early Christian Philosophy
The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the ...
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The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the left side’), but in Flaubert and Stendhal the anonymous ‘one’ focalizes extended descriptions. He is often, though not always, hypothetical ('someone who saw this would think’). Although the anonymous traveller resembles the hypothetical ‘you', he is formally distinct. The anonymous traveller first appears in Homer and is found in a variety of authors, including Isocrates and Plato, but does not seem to be a device of non-Western literature. It is helpful to think of the anonymous traveller as a literary meme, cultural units transmitted by imitation, without conscious borrowing.Less
The anonymous traveller, a subtype of the anonymous focalizer, is a device used in modern fiction. His minimal form is the dative participle ('for someone sailing from the Propontis, there is on the left side’), but in Flaubert and Stendhal the anonymous ‘one’ focalizes extended descriptions. He is often, though not always, hypothetical ('someone who saw this would think’). Although the anonymous traveller resembles the hypothetical ‘you', he is formally distinct. The anonymous traveller first appears in Homer and is found in a variety of authors, including Isocrates and Plato, but does not seem to be a device of non-Western literature. It is helpful to think of the anonymous traveller as a literary meme, cultural units transmitted by imitation, without conscious borrowing.
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804756594
- eISBN:
- 9780804787529
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804756594.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter deals with the realist conception of history, especially in the development of legal doctrine. It begins with a discussion on the historical work of Oliver Wendell Holmes and his ...
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This chapter deals with the realist conception of history, especially in the development of legal doctrine. It begins with a discussion on the historical work of Oliver Wendell Holmes and his conception of legal history. It presents a comparison between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Herbert Spencer, to get a sense of Darwinism in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American social thought. The chapter concludes with actual examples of realist legal history and a brief introduction of contemporary meme theory.Less
This chapter deals with the realist conception of history, especially in the development of legal doctrine. It begins with a discussion on the historical work of Oliver Wendell Holmes and his conception of legal history. It presents a comparison between Oliver Wendell Holmes and Herbert Spencer, to get a sense of Darwinism in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American social thought. The chapter concludes with actual examples of realist legal history and a brief introduction of contemporary meme theory.
Shelley Ingram
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496822956
- eISBN:
- 9781496823007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496822956.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Mythology and Folklore
In 2012, a forecaster on The Weather Channel allegedly reported that an incoming hurricane was a threat to “the landmass between New Orleans and Mobile.” The folklore of the “landmass” internet meme ...
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In 2012, a forecaster on The Weather Channel allegedly reported that an incoming hurricane was a threat to “the landmass between New Orleans and Mobile.” The folklore of the “landmass” internet meme cycle that followed, in which residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast mocked their own invisibility from mainstream consciousness, could easily be dismissed as an inconsequential bit of fun. However, this chapter argues that the meme is part of a larger pattern of expressive culture that, when examined, reveals lingering trauma from Hurricane Katrina and the disturbing systems of oppression—racial, economic, cultural—still at work in the region and, consequently, the nation.Less
In 2012, a forecaster on The Weather Channel allegedly reported that an incoming hurricane was a threat to “the landmass between New Orleans and Mobile.” The folklore of the “landmass” internet meme cycle that followed, in which residents of the Mississippi Gulf Coast mocked their own invisibility from mainstream consciousness, could easily be dismissed as an inconsequential bit of fun. However, this chapter argues that the meme is part of a larger pattern of expressive culture that, when examined, reveals lingering trauma from Hurricane Katrina and the disturbing systems of oppression—racial, economic, cultural—still at work in the region and, consequently, the nation.
Suzanne Scott
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479838608
- eISBN:
- 9781479822966
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479838608.003.0004
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter focuses on how intra-fannish policing practices do not merely work to position some fans as “good” or “bad,” but work to deny access to the identity of “fan” writ large on the grounds of ...
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This chapter focuses on how intra-fannish policing practices do not merely work to position some fans as “good” or “bad,” but work to deny access to the identity of “fan” writ large on the grounds of gender. Addressing how longstanding gender biases within geek culture have set the stage for an entrenched understanding of digital culture as an inherently masculine space in which women are always already “interlopers,” this chapter homes in on one example of spreadable misogyny, the “idiot nerd girl” meme that emerged in 2011, and contextualizes it within broader “fake geek girl” discourses that grew in volume and scale in 2012.Less
This chapter focuses on how intra-fannish policing practices do not merely work to position some fans as “good” or “bad,” but work to deny access to the identity of “fan” writ large on the grounds of gender. Addressing how longstanding gender biases within geek culture have set the stage for an entrenched understanding of digital culture as an inherently masculine space in which women are always already “interlopers,” this chapter homes in on one example of spreadable misogyny, the “idiot nerd girl” meme that emerged in 2011, and contextualizes it within broader “fake geek girl” discourses that grew in volume and scale in 2012.
Jorja G. Henikoff
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195119404
- eISBN:
- 9780197561256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195119404.003.0007
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Systems Analysis and Design
A block is an ungapped local multiple alignment of amino acid sequences from a group of related proteins. Ideally, the contiguous stretch of residues represented by a block is conserved for ...
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A block is an ungapped local multiple alignment of amino acid sequences from a group of related proteins. Ideally, the contiguous stretch of residues represented by a block is conserved for biological function. Blocks have depth (the number of sequences) and width (the number of aligned positions). There are currently several useful programs for finding blocks in a group of related sequences that I do not discuss in detail here. Among these, Motif (Smith et al., 1990) and Asset (Neuwald and Green, 1994) both align blocks on occurrences of certain types of patterns found in the sequences; Gibbs (Lawrence et al., 1993; Neuwald et al., 1995) and MEME (Bailey and Elkan, 1994) both look for statistically optimal local alignments; and Macaw (Schuler et al., 1991) and Somap (Parry-Smith and Attwood, 1992) both give the user assistance in finding blocks interactively. After candidate blocks are identified by a block-finding method, they can be evaluated and assembled into a set representing the protein group, resulting in a multiple alignment consisting of ungapped regions separated by unaligned regions of variable length. The block assembly process is the subject of this chapter. Both the Blocks (Henikoff and Henikoff, 1996a) and Prints (Attwood and Beck, 1994) databases consist of such sets of blocks and between them currently represent 1,163 different protein groups. These collections of blocks are more sensitive and efficient for classifying new sequences into known protein groups than are collections of individual sequences, as demonstrated by comprehensive evaluations (Henikoff and Henikoff, 1994b, 1997), by genomic studies (Green et al., 1993), and by individual studies (Posfai et al., 1988; Henikoff, 1992, 1993; Attwood and Findlay, 1993; Pietrokovski, 1994; Brown, 1995). Issues that must be addressed during block assembly include the number of blocks provided to the assembly module by the block finders, block width, the number of times a block occurs in each sequence (zero to many), overlap of blocks, and the order of multiple blocks within each sequence. Once these issues are decided, it is necessary to score individual competing blocks and then competing sets of blocks.
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A block is an ungapped local multiple alignment of amino acid sequences from a group of related proteins. Ideally, the contiguous stretch of residues represented by a block is conserved for biological function. Blocks have depth (the number of sequences) and width (the number of aligned positions). There are currently several useful programs for finding blocks in a group of related sequences that I do not discuss in detail here. Among these, Motif (Smith et al., 1990) and Asset (Neuwald and Green, 1994) both align blocks on occurrences of certain types of patterns found in the sequences; Gibbs (Lawrence et al., 1993; Neuwald et al., 1995) and MEME (Bailey and Elkan, 1994) both look for statistically optimal local alignments; and Macaw (Schuler et al., 1991) and Somap (Parry-Smith and Attwood, 1992) both give the user assistance in finding blocks interactively. After candidate blocks are identified by a block-finding method, they can be evaluated and assembled into a set representing the protein group, resulting in a multiple alignment consisting of ungapped regions separated by unaligned regions of variable length. The block assembly process is the subject of this chapter. Both the Blocks (Henikoff and Henikoff, 1996a) and Prints (Attwood and Beck, 1994) databases consist of such sets of blocks and between them currently represent 1,163 different protein groups. These collections of blocks are more sensitive and efficient for classifying new sequences into known protein groups than are collections of individual sequences, as demonstrated by comprehensive evaluations (Henikoff and Henikoff, 1994b, 1997), by genomic studies (Green et al., 1993), and by individual studies (Posfai et al., 1988; Henikoff, 1992, 1993; Attwood and Findlay, 1993; Pietrokovski, 1994; Brown, 1995). Issues that must be addressed during block assembly include the number of blocks provided to the assembly module by the block finders, block width, the number of times a block occurs in each sequence (zero to many), overlap of blocks, and the order of multiple blocks within each sequence. Once these issues are decided, it is necessary to score individual competing blocks and then competing sets of blocks.
Timothy L. Bailey
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195119404
- eISBN:
- 9780197561256
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195119404.003.0008
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Systems Analysis and Design
We are in the midst of an explosive increase in the number of DNA and protein sequences available for study, as various genome projects come on line. This wealth of information offers important ...
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We are in the midst of an explosive increase in the number of DNA and protein sequences available for study, as various genome projects come on line. This wealth of information offers important opportunities for understanding many biological processes and developing new plant and animal models, and ultimately drugs, for human diseases, in addition to other applications of modern biotechnology. Unfortunately, sequences are accumulating at a pace that strains present methods for extracting significant biological information from them. A consequence of this explosion in the sequence databases is that there is much interest and effort in developing tools that can efficiently and automatically extract the relevant biological information in sequence data and make it available for use in biology and medicine. In this chapter, we describe one such method that we have developed based on algorithms from artificial intelligence research. We call this software tool MEME (Multiple Expectation-maximization for Motif Elicitation). It has the attractive property that it is an “unsupervised” discovery tool: it can identify motifs, such as regulatory sites in DNA and functional domains in proteins, from large or small groups of unaligned sequences. As we show below, motifs are a rich source of information about a dataset; they can be used to discover other homologs in a database, to identify protein subsets that contain one or more motifs, and to provide information for mutagenesis studies to elucidate structure and function in the protein family as well as its evolution. Learning tools are used to extract higher level biological patterns from lower level DNA and protein sequence data. In contrast, search tools such as BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) take a given higher level pattern and find all items in a database that possess the pattern. Searching for items that have a certain pattern is a problem intrinsically easier than discovering what the pattern is from items that possess it. The patterns considered here are motifs, which for DNA data can be subsequences that interact with transcription factors, polymerases, and other proteins.
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We are in the midst of an explosive increase in the number of DNA and protein sequences available for study, as various genome projects come on line. This wealth of information offers important opportunities for understanding many biological processes and developing new plant and animal models, and ultimately drugs, for human diseases, in addition to other applications of modern biotechnology. Unfortunately, sequences are accumulating at a pace that strains present methods for extracting significant biological information from them. A consequence of this explosion in the sequence databases is that there is much interest and effort in developing tools that can efficiently and automatically extract the relevant biological information in sequence data and make it available for use in biology and medicine. In this chapter, we describe one such method that we have developed based on algorithms from artificial intelligence research. We call this software tool MEME (Multiple Expectation-maximization for Motif Elicitation). It has the attractive property that it is an “unsupervised” discovery tool: it can identify motifs, such as regulatory sites in DNA and functional domains in proteins, from large or small groups of unaligned sequences. As we show below, motifs are a rich source of information about a dataset; they can be used to discover other homologs in a database, to identify protein subsets that contain one or more motifs, and to provide information for mutagenesis studies to elucidate structure and function in the protein family as well as its evolution. Learning tools are used to extract higher level biological patterns from lower level DNA and protein sequence data. In contrast, search tools such as BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) take a given higher level pattern and find all items in a database that possess the pattern. Searching for items that have a certain pattern is a problem intrinsically easier than discovering what the pattern is from items that possess it. The patterns considered here are motifs, which for DNA data can be subsequences that interact with transcription factors, polymerases, and other proteins.
Dale Hudson
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474423083
- eISBN:
- 9781474434768
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474423083.003.0009
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
The conclusion pulls into focus the interplay of aspirations about democratizing media and realities of democratizing the United States as they coalesce on race and the presidency by focusing on the ...
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The conclusion pulls into focus the interplay of aspirations about democratizing media and realities of democratizing the United States as they coalesce on race and the presidency by focusing on the viral video Barackula: The Musical (2008) and theatrical feature Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012). In them, US presidents or future-presidents are represented as vampire hunters and enduring icons of US exceptionalism. Amateur and astroturfed grassroots internet memes demonize the first and only nonwhite president of the United States by employing the animalistic and dehumanizing iconography of Nosferatu, thus signaling afterlives of race in self-authorized acts of racism that can now be distributed via social media to larger audiences than classical Hollywood ever dared imagine.Less
The conclusion pulls into focus the interplay of aspirations about democratizing media and realities of democratizing the United States as they coalesce on race and the presidency by focusing on the viral video Barackula: The Musical (2008) and theatrical feature Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012). In them, US presidents or future-presidents are represented as vampire hunters and enduring icons of US exceptionalism. Amateur and astroturfed grassroots internet memes demonize the first and only nonwhite president of the United States by employing the animalistic and dehumanizing iconography of Nosferatu, thus signaling afterlives of race in self-authorized acts of racism that can now be distributed via social media to larger audiences than classical Hollywood ever dared imagine.
Tony D. Sampson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816670048
- eISBN:
- 9781452946818
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816670048.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, virality does not restrict itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead ...
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This book presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, virality does not restrict itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead points toward a theory of contagious assemblages, events, and affects. Contagion is not necessarily a positive or negative force of encounter; it is how society comes together and relates. The book argues that a biological knowledge of contagion has been universally distributed by way of the rhetoric of fear in the antivirus industry and other popular discourses surrounding network culture. This awareness is also detectable in concerns over too much connectivity, such as problems of global financial crisis and terrorism. This book’s “virality” is as established as that of the biological meme and microbe but is not understood through representational thinking expressed in metaphors and analogies. Rather, the book interprets contagion theory through the social relationalities first established in Gabriel Tarde’s microsociology and subsequently recognized in Gilles Deleuze’s ontological worldview. The book states, the reliance on representational thinking to explain the social behavior of networking—including that engaged in by nonhumans such as computers—allows language to overcategorize and limit analysis by imposing identities, oppositions, and resemblances on contagious phenomena. It is the power of these categories that impinges on social and cultural domains. Assemblage theory, on the other hand, is all about relationality and encounter, helping us to understand the viral as a positively sociological event, building from the molecular outward, long before it becomes biological.Less
This book presents a contagion theory fit for the age of networks. Unlike memes and microbial contagions, virality does not restrict itself to biological analogies and medical metaphors. It instead points toward a theory of contagious assemblages, events, and affects. Contagion is not necessarily a positive or negative force of encounter; it is how society comes together and relates. The book argues that a biological knowledge of contagion has been universally distributed by way of the rhetoric of fear in the antivirus industry and other popular discourses surrounding network culture. This awareness is also detectable in concerns over too much connectivity, such as problems of global financial crisis and terrorism. This book’s “virality” is as established as that of the biological meme and microbe but is not understood through representational thinking expressed in metaphors and analogies. Rather, the book interprets contagion theory through the social relationalities first established in Gabriel Tarde’s microsociology and subsequently recognized in Gilles Deleuze’s ontological worldview. The book states, the reliance on representational thinking to explain the social behavior of networking—including that engaged in by nonhumans such as computers—allows language to overcategorize and limit analysis by imposing identities, oppositions, and resemblances on contagious phenomena. It is the power of these categories that impinges on social and cultural domains. Assemblage theory, on the other hand, is all about relationality and encounter, helping us to understand the viral as a positively sociological event, building from the molecular outward, long before it becomes biological.
Russ Castronovo
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199354900
- eISBN:
- 9780199354931
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199354900.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, American Colonial Literature
This chapter examines the prolix writings—newspapers satires, letters, poems, rebuttals to the Constitutional Convention of 1787—authored by Mercy Otis Warren. The connection between the gendered ...
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This chapter examines the prolix writings—newspapers satires, letters, poems, rebuttals to the Constitutional Convention of 1787—authored by Mercy Otis Warren. The connection between the gendered protocols of eighteenth-century writing and Revolutionary activity are brought into focus here. The problem is that Warren’s work contains numerous interpolations and plagiaries. This lack of authorial control, however, enabled her writing to spread among readers who adopted and adapted her original creations. In a printscape that had little regard for traditional authorship, anonymity made it conceivable that anyone might propagate a critique of British colonial rule. This chapter contends that unauthorized contributions to her corpus, especially her play The Adulateur, facilitated its movement across and heightened its significance in Revolutionary AmericaLess
This chapter examines the prolix writings—newspapers satires, letters, poems, rebuttals to the Constitutional Convention of 1787—authored by Mercy Otis Warren. The connection between the gendered protocols of eighteenth-century writing and Revolutionary activity are brought into focus here. The problem is that Warren’s work contains numerous interpolations and plagiaries. This lack of authorial control, however, enabled her writing to spread among readers who adopted and adapted her original creations. In a printscape that had little regard for traditional authorship, anonymity made it conceivable that anyone might propagate a critique of British colonial rule. This chapter contends that unauthorized contributions to her corpus, especially her play The Adulateur, facilitated its movement across and heightened its significance in Revolutionary America
Michael Ruse
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199688081
- eISBN:
- 9780191767722
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199688081.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religious Studies, Religion and Society
This chapter addresses three questions. First, what are the evolutionary accounts of religion? To answer this question, the chapter describes several distinct types of evolutionary account. It is ...
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This chapter addresses three questions. First, what are the evolutionary accounts of religion? To answer this question, the chapter describes several distinct types of evolutionary account. It is argued that there is very little consensus amongst evolutionary explanations of religion in general. Second, this chapter asks how convincing these various evolutionary accounts really are, and whether there are any good reasons for choosing one over another. It is suggested that evidence for many of the evolutionary theorists’ claims is scarce and, consequently, that these theorists’ commitments to their respective theories are shaped more by their background assumptions about religion and evolution than actual empirical data. Finally, this chapter addresses the implications that evolutionary accounts have for the truth of religious belief. It is argued that although accounts of the origins of religious belief cannot logically refute the truth of those beliefs, certain explanations are still likely to make religious believers uncomfortable.Less
This chapter addresses three questions. First, what are the evolutionary accounts of religion? To answer this question, the chapter describes several distinct types of evolutionary account. It is argued that there is very little consensus amongst evolutionary explanations of religion in general. Second, this chapter asks how convincing these various evolutionary accounts really are, and whether there are any good reasons for choosing one over another. It is suggested that evidence for many of the evolutionary theorists’ claims is scarce and, consequently, that these theorists’ commitments to their respective theories are shaped more by their background assumptions about religion and evolution than actual empirical data. Finally, this chapter addresses the implications that evolutionary accounts have for the truth of religious belief. It is argued that although accounts of the origins of religious belief cannot logically refute the truth of those beliefs, certain explanations are still likely to make religious believers uncomfortable.
