Critical Appreciation Research Articles

Core Practices and Philosophy of Education: Balancing Effectiveness with Goodness

Background/ContextThis paper is part of the special issue “Reimagining Research and Practice at the Crossroads of Philosophy, Teaching, and Teacher Education.” In it we respond to the question of what role there might be for philosophy of education in an era marked by the demand that students graduating from teacher education programs be immediately effective, with “effectiveness” often narrowly, if not wholly, defined by the results of student standardized test scores.Research DesignWe address the question by offering an appreciative exploration of core practices approaches to teacher education. We argue (a) that philosophers of education have much to learn by engaging these approaches, and that (b) practitioners and advocates of core practices can deepen their work through a critical appreciation of philosophy of education.Conclusions/RecommendationsThough philosophy appears marginalized by core practices approaches to teaching and teacher education, we suggest that as core practices gain traction, philosophers of education will find new opportunities to engage with teaching and teacher education. Though much mitigates against this type of work, most notably the pressures related to effectiveness and institutional habits that still often separate methods and foundations courses, we argue that such work is indispensable in rendering teaching, and teacher education, both effective and responsible.

The Use of Multimedia and its Impact on Bangladeshi EFL Learners at Tertiary Level

As 21st century is the era of modern technologies with different aspects, it offers us to make the best use of them. After tape recorder and overhead projector (OHP), multimedia has become an important part of language classroom facilities for its unique and effective application in delivering and learning lesson. Although in many parts of Bangladesh, a South Asian developing country, where English enjoys the status of a foreign language, the use of multimedia in teaching and learning is viewed as a matter of luxury. However, nowadays the usefulness and the necessity of it are well recognized by the academics as well as the government. The study aims to focus on the difference between a traditional classroom void of multimedia and multimedia equipped classrooms at university level by explaining how multimedia support the students with enhanced opportunity to interact with diverse texts that give them more in-depth comprehension of the subject. It also focuses on audio-visual advantage of multimedia on the students’ English language learning. The study has followed a qualitative method to get an in-depth understanding of the impact of using multimedia in an English language classroom at tertiary level. For this purpose, the data have been collected from two different sources. Firstly, from students’ written response to  an open ended question as to their comparative experience of learning  lessons with and without multimedia facilities; and secondly, through observation of English language classes at a private university of Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. The discussion of the study is limited to the use of multimedia in English language classroom using cartoons, images and music with a view to enhance students’ skills in academic writing, critical analysis of image and critical appreciation of music. For this purpose, cartoons in English language, images from Google and music from You Tube have got focused discussion in this paper.

Chekhov’s Death of a Clerk: A Critical Appreciation

The present paper proposes to undertake a deep study of the Death of a Clerk. This beautiful short story has been written by Anton Chekhov, a prominent story teller of Russia. This story has been translated into English from Russian by Ivy Litvinov. This translation of Ivy Litvinov has been made the basis of the present study. The period of 1880-1885 is a very important period in the career of Anton Chekhov. During this period, he wrote hundreds of humorous tales. They show a keen sense of the social scene and of the incongruities of life. These tales reveal a deep feeling for human injustice and suffering. In these stories Anton Chekhov attempted to see things as they were and to deal with them as he saw them. According to him a reasoned life without a clear-cut point of view is not a life, but a burden and a horror. This was a strange idea for that day but it played a significant role in his works. Chekhov’s Death of a Clerk is one of them. It beautifully presents the picture of the life of a society based on tyranny and servility.

Poetik der Kritik – Ästhetik des Deutens

Abstract Some of the mainly unchartered territories in literary criticism are the implications of Susan Sontag’s frontal attack on traditional hermeneutical practices in Against Interpretation (1969). This contribution to investigations into the modes of interpretation attempts to draw constructive consequences from this provocation and investigate the notion of a ›poetics of criticism‹ emanating into what can be called the ›aesthetics of interpretation‹. In so doing, it explores the Romantic backdrop of this discourse through examining Friedrich Schlegel’s plea for a ›poetization‹ of critique and his demand to turn critical approaches into aesthetic, if not artistic, acts. Then, these reflections examine notions of perception or Anschauung as a cornerstone of comprehension; discuss poetic renderings of thought with Nietzsche, who epitomizes the fusion of reflection and aesthetic production; single out one of Gottfried Benn’s early poems (»Kreislauf«) as an object for putting aesthetic interpretation into practice given the specific character of this Expressionistic text; and, finally, assess elements of theories of recognition in terms of aesthetic practice with specific reference to a paragraph in early Adorno, which highlights cognitive transformation processes as matters of aesthetic experience. Thus, this essay illustrates the interrelationship between critical theory and practice as an aesthetic act, which takes into account the significance of Sontag’s challenge, exemplifying the necessity of finding a language register that can claim to strive towards adequacy in relation to the (artistic) object of criticism without compromising analytical rigour. The argument developed in this contribution towards an aesthetics of interpretation begins with a critical appreciation of various forms and modes of criticism in literature and other aspects of artistic expression. It centres on the significance of the dialogue as an explorative means of critical discourse, ranging from Friedrich Schlegel to Hugo von Hofmannsthal and indeed Hans Magnus Enzensberger. With the (fictive) dialogue as an instrument of aesthetic judgement, ›experience‹ entered the stage of literary criticism negotiating ambivalences and considering alternative points of view often generated from the texts under consideration. In terms of the ambivalences mentioned above, this investigation into the nature of criticism considers the notion of criticism as a form of art and an extrapolation of aesthetic reason as propagated already by Henry Kames, once even quoted by Hegel in connection with the establishing of a rationale for the critical appreciation of artistic products. It discusses the interplay of distance from, and empathy with, objects of aesthetic criticism asking to what extent the act of interpretation (Wolfgang Iser) can acquire a creative momentum of its own without distorting its true mission, namely to assess the characteristics and aesthetic qualities of specific (poetic) texts or other artistic objects. Following the closer examination of several of Nietzsche’s poems and Roland Barthes’s insistence on the segmentation of the linguistic material that constitutes a textual entity worthy of criticism, the article examines one of Gottfried Benn’s early poems (»Kreislauf«, 1912) in respect of its textual and structural dynamics, awkward sensuality as a form of negative eroticism. On the basis of a detailed linguistic, and indeed poetic, examination it shows where, when, and how literary criticism can meaningfully identify structural features as denominators for aesthetic experience. The final section is devoted to instrumentalize Adorno’s point that concepts can turn with some inevitability into images enabling the theory of cognition to acquire some credibility as a potentially fertile basis for aesthetic practice – both in literary criticism and poetic production. With a concluding reference to Paul Celan’s remark that language acquires a Being of its own and that something of existential significance occurs in the poem, this article illustrates that interpretation depends on a successful interplay of cognitive and sensual processes, which leaves criticism somewhere between aesthetic analysis and contextualization as well as between taking linguistic images metaphorically or indeed literarily. Finally, it suggests regarding aesthetic criticism as a way to assess both the actual creative process and its results as if they were involved in a ›dialogue‹ of their own. Therefore, interpretation can be seen as a process that generates its very own dynamics and procedures (i. e. ›poetics‹), either in relation to its object or in form of a juxtaposition. If the latter, the likelihood is stronger that ›interpretation‹ acquires more distinctiveness. Ultimately, however, the (quasi-performative) quality of interpretation depends on its stylistic features, the adequacy of language used, and conceptual stringency without disregarding its essential function, namely to enable a dialogue between the work of art and its recipient and the recipients amongst themselves.

Subterranean geopolitics, affective atmosphere and peace: Negotiating China-Taiwan relations in the Zhaishan Tunnel

Geopolitical studies on the subterranean have tended to portray underground spaces (including tunnels and caves) as closely imbricated with warfare, violence and militarism. This paper departs from existing literatures insofar as it explores how peaceful ideas and relationships can similarly be fostered through the subterranean realm. Using the case of the Zhaishan Tunnel located on the Taiwanese island of Kinmen, we demonstrate how this site has converted from a defensive structure against the military antagonisms from mainland China to one that is largely associated with rapprochement tourism for the cultivation of benign China-Taiwan relations. Specifically, by drawing on the concept of affective atmosphere, we argue that the elemental and material aspects of the tunnel have been strategically deployed to affectively shore up Chinese and Taiwanese visitors' collective memories in order to re-orientate their dispositions towards peaceful cross-strait futures. In so doing, we demonstrate how affective atmosphere can be analytically productive in examining the elemental and embodied dimensions of subterranean geopolitics. It not only enables critical appreciation of the ways in which different elemental materialities impact upon subjective feelings in/of subterranean spaces. More crucially, it also encourages incisive reflections into the agency and politics behind the conjoining of the elemental and bodily for the (re)making of subterranean geopolitics.

The Value of Play in Management Education at University

This short paper aims to raise awareness of research being undertaken and to invite participation and perspectives via a survey in the first instance. It scopes out the use of playful and play-based teaching and learning at university, identifying its benefits and barriers. It focuses on the value of such approaches in the domains of business and management in higher education and seeks to increase knowledge and critical appreciation of these through a two year project.

Критичний розгляд проблемних питань стратиграфії і тектоніки Складчастих Карпат і прилеглих територій на прикладі «Держгео-карти–200»

The paper gives a critical appreciation of a number of principles containing in materials of the State geological map at a scale of 1 : 200 000 (Carpathian series of sheets) published in 2003–2009. Its scientific and practical value is recognized as a source of knowledge of the structure and natural resources of the Carpathians. At the same time, numerous inaccuracies are noted in the sphere of stratigraphy and tectonics, but revealed in the reviewed work. This was negatively depicted on the quality of geological and tectonical maps of the Folded Carpathians, presented in it, that in its turn may have an influence on the appreciation of the prospects of oil and gas presence in the region, may be not for the best. On the basis of the analysis of considerable amount of factual material, including that one received after the publication of State geological map – 200, the authors have corrected revealed defects. The attention was paid to the possibility to create the latest, more perfect map of the Outer Carpathians at a scale of 1 : 100 000. Its base version is already existent.

Home birth, world cinema: Kawase Naomi's films in circulation

ABSTRACTAn Asian woman filmmaker whose work is celebrated and financed in Europe yet produced in her hometown of Nara, Japan, Kawase Naomi's creative trajectory is often made to trace an economy of ‘world cinema’ sketching constructions of gender, race and nation in uneasy relation to actual patterns of reception and production. While her early self-documentary shorts are described according to artistic vision, her later arthouse features are judged for their circulation on the international film festival circuit. Yet these impulses toward aesthetic and institutional analysis are seldom integrated into a critical appreciation of the breadth of Kawase's work. This article examines a transitional period of the director's filmography in which scenes of home birth repeat across her dramatic and documentary work, placing them in context with discourses of self-documentary and personal filmmaking that aestheticize birth and sex to interrogate the act of self-expression, and challenge gendered constructions of the artist and formation of a ‘natural’ life against a cultural mainstream. While her work is criticized as narcissistically apolitical by a masculinist domestic film culture, approaching Kawase's material and institutional self-inscription reveals a feminist mediation in productive tension with neoliberal globalization's cinema of regional consumption.

Effectiveness of skin protectors and calendula officinalis for prevention and treatment of radiodermatitis: an integrative review.

to analyze the effectiveness of skin protectors and Calendula officinalis for prevention and treatment of radiodermatitis. an integrative review conducted at CINAHL, Cochrane Library, Embase, MEDLINE/PubMed, IBECS, LILACS, and Web of Science. The final sample consisted of five studies, four clinical studies and one preclinical. Critical appreciation and narrative synthesis of the findings were carried out. the Cavilon™ skin protector was more effective than Sorbolene (cream with 10% glycerin) and less effective than Mometasone Furoate cream. Calendula officinalis was more effective than Trolamine and essential fatty acids and less effective than Ching Wan Hung® for prevention and treatment of radiodermatitis. data confirm the potential of Calendula officinalis for prevention and treatment of radiodermatitis and point to promising results regarding skin protector use; however, there is a need for further testing as to the effectiveness of such products.

Direct from the horse's mouth: what bank employees feel about training and development programs in Indian banking sector

Training has become a potential tool for development of skills and managerial attributes in employees. In the banking sector, specially, training and development programs have become a routine feature. The current study attempts to understand the perceptions of bank employees with respect to trainings. For this purpose a scale has been developed and consists of five dimensions: critical appreciation, soft issues, key outcomes, necessary suggestions and timing aspect. Regression analysis depicts key outcomes being the most significant factor while shorter duration of trainings are also important. Other key findings include expectations of trainees to be made partners in the learning process. The paper contributes to management field by helping understand what the bank employees want from a training program and its implications for managements particularly in banking sector. The applicability of the scale is also discussed towards the end.

Direct from the horse’s mouth: What bank employees feel about training and development programmes in Indian banking sector.

Training has become a potential tool for development of skills and managerial attributes in employees. In the banking sector, specially, training and development programs have become a routine feature. The current study attempts to understand the perceptions of bank employees with respect to trainings. For this purpose a scale has been developed and consists of five dimensions: critical appreciation, soft issues, key outcomes, necessary suggestions and timing aspect. Regression analysis depicts key outcomes being the most significant factor while shorter duration of trainings are also important. Other key findings include expectations of trainees to be made partners in the learning process. The paper contributes to management field by helping understand what the bank employees want from a training program and its implications for managements particularly in banking sector. The applicability of the scale is also discussed towards the end.

On Being Out of Touch: Evan S. Connell and the Aesthetic of Social Oblivion

"On Being Out of Touch: Evan S. Connell and the Aesthetic of Social Oblivion": Evan S. Connell (1924-2013) is widely regarded is an innovative, talented and under-studied American writer. This essay seeks to contribute to his wider critical appreciation by examining a central element of his oeuvre, namely his depiction of the socially oblivious, or those who function in life, but are what popular parlance calls "out of touch." Specifically, the essay explores the portray of two such oblivious characters: Mr. Bridge, the title figure in the 1974 novel of the same name, and Muhlbach, in the 1974 novella, The Connoisseur. The argument claims these figures have an aesthetic sense of their own, and that Connell cultivated a special aesthetic in bringing them to the page. The essay also explores the implications of this idea in that one of Connell's special gifts was the capacity to extend artistic considerations to a category of people who are typically regarded as beneath or beyond the purview of serious art. Simultaneously, the essay argues that a key reason why Connell remains noted but not really integrated into engaged critical reception is because the aesthetics of social oblivion receives insignificant attention. Placing oblivion "in focus" makes Connell's work more interesting and relevant for our age.

Neo-Victorian Materialisms in John Fowles’s The Collector

While John Fowles’s (1926-2005) The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1969) is studied frequently as a neo-Victorian novel, his first published novel, The Collector (1963), is ignored in the critical analyses of neo-Victorian studies. This is mostly due to the fact that The Collector is neither a re-writing of a Victorian novel nor sets in the nineteenth century. However, a critical reading of the novel demonstrates how Fowles explicitly manifests the continuation of the Victorian materialist obsession in this particular novel. In other words, albeit the contemporary setting of the novel and the critical appreciation of it as a feminist fiction, the protagonist, Clegg’s obsession with the material objects echoes Victorian cultural materialisation in a way that leads him to collect butterflies and women. Drawing an analogy between these two collections, it is mostly argued by the critics that Fowles discusses the issues of gender in this particular novel. From a different perspective, it will be argued in this study that Fowles actually illustrates the obsession with the material objects with respect to both the dead butterfly collection and also to the commodification of the female body as the material object. From this vantage point, the aim of this study is to analyse The Collector as a neo-Victorian novel revisiting the material culture of the Victorian period and the repercussions of the traumatic relationship between the human and the object in the twentieth century.

Developing board games to teach literary elements in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’

The purpose of this research is to interrogate the effectiveness of developing board games to teach literary elements such as characters, setting and themes based on the literary text ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee. The development of board games in teaching English literature aims to help student teachers to critically examine their understanding of the approaches to teaching literature. It will further develop critical appreciation and cultural awareness for students whose English is a second language. This study is based on a course ‘Teaching of literature: Reading the word and the world’ taught to 45 Year 2 TESL undergraduate student teachers at the Faculty of Education, UKM. This case study was designed with four methods of data collection namely questionnaire, interview, student teachers’ board games and reflective essays. In this study, the student teachers had formed six groups and then had chosen either a theme or a character such as ‘Tom Robinson’, ‘Atticus Finch’, ‘Boo Radley’, ‘Scout Finch’, ‘Gender stereotyping’ and ‘Racism’ to be developed further into board games. They later reflected on the whole process of developing board games, identifying its strengths, weaknesses and suggestions on how to improve it. Generally, the participants perceived that developing board games helps them to teach the literary elements such as characters, setting and themes to the pupils.

Analisis Perilaku Belajar Siswa Kelas X ADP SMK Muhammadiyah 2 Pekanbaru

Abstract: This type of research is qualitative and data collection techniques in this study are 3: 1) Observation Techniques, 2) Interview Techniques, and 3) Documentation. Data analysis techniques using data reduction, data presentation and triangulation. The formulation of the problem in this study is how is the Analysis of the Behavior of Class X ADP 3 and ADP 4 Students at SMK Muhammadiyah 2 Pekanbaru in the Learning Process. The results showed that in general of the five indicators: observation, associative thinking and memory, rational and critical thinking, inhibition, and appreciation can be good categories in student learning behavior, only a small proportion of students who still do actions that are not in accordance with student learning behavior in the learning process, it is necessary to take the attention of parents and teachers to monitor student learning behavior so that students can apply the rules that have been determined by the school.Keyword: analysis, behavior learning, student

More than an Artist in the Making: Samuel Beckett’s “Assumption” Revisited

Abstract Samuel Beckett’s first published short story, “Assumption” (1929), is usually described as an apprentice work, “a piece of marginally interesting juvenilia” (Pattie 2000: 52), a beginner’s attempt toward a modernist short story in which the influence of James Joyce is clear. Indeed, it has been claimed that Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is the model underlying Beckett’s early foray into creative fiction. The current paper seeks to reassess the established critical appreciation of “Assumption”, that of being a parody of Joyce’s novel by a playful disciple; instead, I will argue that Beckett was in fact questioning the very principles of his master’s art. If Portrait is the epitome of the Künstlerroman, Beckett in his short piece debunked the myth of the young artist by consciously downgrading the aesthetic concerns of his protagonist and by disrupting the revered categories of modernist fiction.This essay is part of the research project FF I 2016-76477-P, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades and by AEI / FEDER. The author would also like to thank CEI Patrimonio (Universidad de Almería) for their support..

A Study on the Improvement of College Students’ English Cultural Accomplishment under the Concept of General Education

Besides imparting knowledge, college English course is also a language carrier for students to understand western culture and a way to improve their comprehensive cultural literacy. Therefore, under the guidance of General Education theory, this paper attempts to integrate the appreciation of English literary translations into College English teaching, so that non-English majors can improve their English language ability, at the same time, they can improve their critical appreciation ability and cultural accomplishment.

Teaching Global German Using German‐Language Cosmopolitan Tradition(s)

This article argues that vital resources for teaching the relationship of German and the global to advanced undergraduate language students can be found in a critical approach to the rich tradition of cosmopolitanism in canonical German‐language texts. One especially rich vein of this tradition is the historical depiction of relationships between Europe and the “Orient” from the time of the Crusades, through modernity, and into intersections with the contemporary realities of migration, global capitalism, and multinational crises. A distinctive feature of the German tradition is the attempt not only to present and problematize the contrast between “Occident” and “Orient” but to explore – even in literary texts – theoretical approaches to cultural difference. These approaches retain their validity today as conversation partners as we develop our own strategies for navigating a world caught between competing visions of the “local,” the “national,” and the “global.” By emphasizing the tension between the canon's complicity in constructing stereotypes and identities, which still haunt us today, and its advocacy for a utopian cosmopolitanism, students in these courses are prepared for both a critical appreciation of German‐language traditions as well as a historically‐based German perspective on current events.

What is accounting? The “being” and “be-ings” of the accounting phenomenon and its critical appreciation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to reflect a critical perspective drawing from phenomenology, especially informed by a reading of Heidegger, to enhance and extend appreciation of the need to question accounting’s meaning or delineation and how research might be undertaken into the accounting phenomenon and related areas.Design/methodology/approachTo illustrate and clarify argumentation in terms of accounting mobilization and the domain of accounting research, the mainstream and strongly positivistic accounting perspective adopted in the USA is critically assessed. At the same time, the authors elaborate how much of interpretive research (including much of that labeled critical) is also lacking in terms of the perspective articulated here.FindingsThe paper stresses the case for questioning the taken-for-granted and conventional. It promotes reflexivity, cautious pragmatism, attentiveness to the value of the existing, responsibility to difference and otherness and openness to new possibilities as part of a deeper critical orientation.Originality/valueThe paper draws from phenomenology, especially in Heideggerian terms to open-up new conversational domain to debate accounting.

Experiential Learning: Critical Reading through Learning by Doing Method in the Context of Teaching EFL among Engineering Students

In this research paper, the author explores the task on critical reading through ‘learning by doing method’ to bring out the ensuing perceptions of the learners in the perspective of teaching of EFL. This research probes mainly on how reading could enable individual interest in critical appreciation of the novel and how experiential learning through ‘learning by doing method’ develops the learners’ skills. Theoretical groundwork for task assignment on the model learning has been demonstrated for the respondents. As this task emphasizes mainly on self learning through learning by doing method, resembles close with the experiential learning technique. This research asserts to be pragmatic, implementing a task based experiential learning English through learning by doing methodology. This task is confined to the critical appreciation of the contemporary novel for the undergraduate engineering students from one of the reputed national institutes of technology in India.