Disciplinary Fields Research Articles

A Futurist Turn in the Humanities

A Futurist Turn in the Humanities Mikhail Epstein (bio) THE ART OF THE HUMANITIES The creative aspect of the humanities has not yet found its recognition in the established classification of academic disciplines. The crucial question may be formulated as follows: are the humanities a purely scholarly field, or should there be some active, constructive supplement to them? There are three major branches of knowledge established in academia: natural sciences, social sciences, and the humanities. Technology serves as the practical extension ("application") of the natural sciences, and politics as the extension of the social sciences. Both technology and politics are designed to transform what their respective disciplines study: nature and society. Is there, then, any activity in the humanities that would correspond to this transformative status of technology and politics? In the following schema, the third line demonstrates a blank space, indicating the open status of the practical applications of the humanities: Nature – natural sciences – technology – transformation of nature Society – social sciences – politics – transformation of society Culture – the humanities – ? – transformation of culture The question mark suggests that we need a practical branch of the humanities that will function like technology and politics but [End Page 593] is specific to the cultural domain. The tendency in the "applied humanities" up to this point has been to technologize or politicize these disciplines, that is, to subject them to the practical modalities of natural or social sciences. "The digital humanities" or "the humanities at the service of ideology" are examples of such subjugation. We need a practical branch of the humanities which resonates with technology and politics, but is specific to the cultural domain. The simplest term for this transformative branch of the humanities would be the transhumanities—the humanities that aim to transform the area of their studies. The transformative humanities encompass all humanistic technologies, all practical applications of cultural theories. When offering a certain theory, we need to ask ourselves if it is able to inaugurate a new cultural or linguistic practice, an artistic movement, a disciplinary field, a new institution, or a lifestyle. Generally speaking, the humanities can be perceived as art or scholarship, and what I suggest is the resurrection of the art of the humanities.1 This includes the art of building new intellectual communities, new paradigms of thinking and modes of communication, rather than simply studying or criticizing the products of culture. We should bear in mind that the humanities constitute the level of meta-art, different from the primary arts of literature, painting, or music, all of which comprise the objects of humanistic inquiry. The fact that the humanities belong to this meta-discursive level does not preclude their practical, productive orientation. The humanities do not produce works of art, but rather generate new cultural positions, movements, perspectives, and modes of reflexivity. Without practical applications, the humanities are what botany would be without cultivation of plants, forestry, and gardening, or cosmology without practical exploration of outer space. Scholarship becomes scholasticism. But what impact does cultural theory have on contemporary culture, or poetics on living poetry? It should be one of the tasks of literary scholarship to project new ways of writing; a task of linguistics to create new signs, lexical units, and grammatical models that would expand the richness and expressive power of language; and a task of philosophy to project new universals and universes, the alternative worlds that may become more palpable and habitable through the advance of technology. This group of practical disciplines—translinguistics, transaesthetics, transpoetics, etc.—aim to transform those areas of culture which are studied [End Page 594] by the corresponding scholarly disciplines of linguistics, aesthetics, and poetics. One of the broadest applications can be assigned to translinguistics, or "language design," which creates artificial languages or introduces new directions for the development of natural languages. Ludwik Zamenhof's project, the international language Esperanto (first introduced in 1887), obviously does not belong to the field of linguistics properly, though it derives from profound and creative linguistic scholarship. The comparative analysis of existing languages allowed Zamenhof to synthesize a new language that combines in its grammar and vocabulary Roman, German, and Slavic elements and now has about one to two million speakers worldwide. Another...

Highlighting the Diversity of Food Practices in the First Mediterranean Farming Societies

As new discoveries are made, the diet of the earliest agro-pastoral communities of the Mediterranean, which was initially seen as homogeneous, is revealed to be increasingly varied. However, diversity in the Neolithic food practices remains difficult to grasp because of the scarcity of large-scale diachronic and synchronic syntheses published on food remains (faunal and botanical remains), human bones (teeth lesions), kitchen utensils (ceramic and stone vessels, grinding stones, knapped flint tools), storage and cooking installations (silos, ovens, hearths). This special issue aims to shed light on the great diversity of food resources exploited and the ways of procuring, storing and preparing them among the first Mediterranean farmers by bringing together contributions from scholars who are specialized in various ‘‘areas’’ (eastern vs western Mediterranean) and disciplinary fields (archaeology, archaeozoology, archaeobotany, physical anthropology, lithic usewear analysis). Together these contributions open up new ways of understanding the Neolithization processes in the Mediterranean area from the perspective of food traditions.

Technologies for Learning Writing in L1 and L2 for the 21st Century: Effects on Writing Metacognition, Self-Efficacy and Argumentative Structuring

Aim/Purpose: Quality in higher education assumes the challenge of developing in all citizens of the 21st century the cognitive, motivational, and socio-cultural dimensions that provide them with communication competences including the use of information and communication technologies, for the dissemination of sustainable scientific knowledge in different languages. Hence this paper evaluates a didactic-technological process called “Ensayo Científico Multilingüe” or ECM (“Multilingual Scientific Essay”), which guides the construction of argumentative texts in a shared didactic space in the native language (L1) and in the first foreign language (L2). Background: Although the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in educational contexts stands out as an index of quality, some studies indicate that these technologies, by themselves, do not produce changes in learning. The possibility that ICTs can contribute to a university-quality education is by providing measures that allow verification of the effects on the real improvement of the learning of communication competences of students and, especially, in the learning of written communication for the purpose of scientific dissemination. In order to do so, this research is based on the Metasociocognitive Written Composition (MWC) model that explains university writing as a complex process in which, metacognitively, cognitive-linguistic competences and socio-cultural experiences interact with motivational factors to achieve outreach objectives within a disciplinary field. This interaction always takes place by applying a specific textual genre. Methodology: For this research, a mixed quasi-experimental research design was proposed, with a control and an experimental group with 50 university students in each group. This design included two repeated measures (pre-test, post-test) for three dependent variables: (i) metacognition of writing; (ii) self-efficacy of argumentative writing; and (iii) structuring of the argumentative essay, in both L1 and L2. Validated instruments were selected and the correlations between the variables described both before and after the application of the ECM, in L1 and L2, as well as their correlations with the didactic-technological procedures integrated in the ECM: written activities, their extension, languages used, Lesson and Forums. Contribution: This article analyses the didactic-technological procedures that may be influencing the improvement in the learning of argumentative writing, both in L1 and L2, with validity and reliability. This enables the establishment of technological strategies for teaching shared in L1 and L2, both real and contrasted. Findings: It can be stated that the ECM creates a shared didactic-technological space in different languages, producing similar effects in L1 and L2, both on writing metacognition and on self-efficacy and argumentative structuring. The ECM enhances the association of writing metacognition with argumentative self-efficacy in L1 and L2. However, these dimensions are not associated with the structuring of argumentative essays, either in L1 or in L2. Furthermore, it is verified that the described variables are associated with the didactic-technological procedures integrated in the ECM in the following ways: (i) the procedure to promote writing metacognition (through the Lesson tool) is associated with argumentative structuring in L2; (ii) the extent of writing activities is associated, only, with argumentative self-efficacy in L1; and (iii) participation in the Forums presents a very low association with all the variables measured. Recommendations for Practitioners: The present study promotes the application of the ECM by introducing changes in the procedures to improve its effectiveness in argumentative writing learning of a scientific nature, in L1 and L2. In this sense, it is proposed: (i) to adapt and implement the genre-based writing instructions methodology to the technological context; (ii) incorporate more collaborative technologies in the construction of the text; and (iii) reduce the number of forums and replace the extensive activities with micro activities. Recommendation for Researchers: Present the ECM in an open mode that allows access to international students and, thus, to be able to validate the instruments in different languages, checking its effects with a diversity of groups. Impact on Society: The results of this research show that it is possible to promote the learning of argumentative writing in L1 and L2 from the first year of university, sharing didactic-technological learning spaces. The potential of ICT to help students manage and acquire better scientific writing skills in different languages and its positive results to meet the needs of students, both in L1 and L2, is especially demonstrated. In short, the procedures, resources, applications, and tools integrated in a didactic process are described, demonstrating their effectiveness, for the development of communicative competences of scientific dissemination. Undoubtedly, this contributes to a quality higher education, so demanded internationally, for the creation of a culture of peace and cooperation that enables sustainable global development. Future Research: Another line of research that is being developed in the future is the adaptation of ECM to the teaching of other genres and educational levels, as well as for the integration of people with functional diversity and immigrants.

Twentieth-century research on the Alpine rural house between the epistemological issue and legitimizing narratives

Throughout the twentieth century, the gazes of observers from different disciplinary fields, ethnologists, geographers, architects have focused on the Alpine rural house. What do scholars seek within the theme of the house and the rural area? In Switzerland, the pioneering nineteenth-century studies were followed by research, starting from the 1870s, by the philologist Jakob Hunziker. In his analysis, he took into consideration not only exceptional constructions but also widespread building production. Buildings were detected and illustrated through diagrammatic “primarily planimetric” and photographic representations. However, the original data in Hunziker’s work is found above all in the correlation that is established between language and architecture. In this context, rural architecture is no longer a simple determinist adhesion to the natural and environmental context in which one lives but becomes a historically determined affirmation of a verified and mediated cultural model concerning the local datum. Alongside the readings of geographers and ethnologists, there is the chapter of the studies on the rural house conducted by architectural culture. The theme of rural architecture will represent a subject of dispute with often ideological overtones between proponents of modernity and those of traditionalism. Towards the mid-thirties, Pagano’s semantic translation represents the definitive shift, at least by the architects of the modernist front, from a mere question of a more complex theme, capable of considering the multiple aspects of building in the countryside, culminating in the exhibition Architettura rurale Italiana by Pagano and Daniel. The use of the category of functionalism when dealing with the farmer house allows to recognize rural architecture as a discipline and simultaneously allows it to function as a cultural background and a historical validation for rationalism.

Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I by Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis

Reviewed by: Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I by Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis Kristen Proehl Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I. By Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis. Jefferson: McFarland & Company Inc., 2020. 252 pp. Paper $55. Emily Hamilton-Honey and Susan Ingalls Lewis's Girls to the Rescue: Young Heroines in American Series Fiction of World War I presents an intriguing examination of a comparatively underexamined body of literature: girls' series fiction of the First World War era. As the authors note in their introduction, although historians have long been interested in the role of gender in relation to the Great War, as well as "the impact of war on society and cultural issues," they have not thoroughly examined how girls contributed to the history of this era (1). This book persuasively argues and demonstrates that wartime changes in gender were reflected in girls' series literature (5). The study offers an important new contribution to girls' studies, among a variety of other disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, as it reveals how early twentieth-century girls' series fiction may add to our understanding of the First World War era. Girls to the Rescue is organized into seven thematic chapters, along with an introduction, conclusion, and appendix. Chapter 1 explores girls' series fiction published both prior to and after American entry into the war, such as the Patty Fairfield series. Hamilton-Honey and Lewis argue that after the start of the war, girl protagonists tended to be "more independent, less inclined to listen to authority, and less domestic" (48). They show that the war seemed to "seep into girls' fiction gradually" and that series literature initially portrayed both the benefits and drawbacks of being a neutral nation (48). The second chapter examines one of the more conventional representations of wartime involvement: girls who supported the war effort from the position of the American [End Page 468] home front. Chapter 3 focuses on girls who were involved in nursing or relief work, such as those in Margaret Vandercook's Red Cross Girls series. Although nursing was a common and expected occupation for women at this time, the most popular texts from this era did not focus on nursing but rather used this occupation to set the stage for other, more exciting adventures (97). This chapter also includes some interesting discussion of Aunt Jane's Nieces series, written pseudonymously by Frank L. Baum (author of the well-known Oz series). The final chapters of Girls to the Rescue explore some of the ways in which series fiction radically reimagined girls' involvement in the Great War. As the authors note in chapter 4, the Progressive era ushered in new forms of transportation for women that were often closely linked to their sense of empowerment. This chapter examines the Grace Harlowe series and similar texts that portrayed girls who made use of new modes of transportation in service of the war effort. Chapter 5 examines girl heroines who captured spies and saboteurs and even gained national attention for their efforts. Chapter 6 features girls who rescued injured or endangered men and the final chapter focuses on "girls who fight" in a variety of ways, from the use of their own intelligence to firearms. Hamilton-Honey and Lewis have added conclusions to the end of every chapter that offer some of the study's most compelling analytical claims. Girls to the Rescue effectively uses interdisciplinary methods as it synthesizes analyses of literature, history, and visual culture. The authors center their analysis on literary texts and illustrations but approach this work using a historical framework. In so doing, they remain focused on the study's stated purpose: to use girls' series literature to "see how the war was sold to girls and to explore the parameters of girls' activism as represented in popular literature" (5). The authors enrich their historical research through the inclusion and visual analysis of illustrations and cover art from the girls' series texts. While Girls to the Rescue is an interdisciplinary work of scholarship, Hamilton-Honey and Lewis tend to focus on narrative analysis...

Streit um „No. 1759“ – die Wachsmoulage als begehrtes Medium

A close look at collection items is an important key to further investigation. However, a stepback from the actual objects, and a search for broader contexts may offer insights that withinthe actual disciplinary field might be overlooked. This paper aims to follow the historical tracesof the dermatological wax moulages in the Würzburg collection. Therefore, it sheds light onthe actors and networks in the process of the production of the popular atlas by Eduard Jacobi,continued by Karl Zieler, that is very much linked to this collection. A broader historical networkis revealed by giving more attention to competitive Josef Jadassohn. Archive material of theJulius Springer publishing house in Berlin turns out to be a fruitful source of information aboutrelationships between doctors as authors, publishers, craftsmen like Alfons Kröner and thehistoricaleconomic situation. Thus, the examined case of moulage “no. 1759” representsa) the dialectics of showing as much as possible in the atlas and keeping the copyright for asmany reproduction models, and at the same time illustrates b) how important well-made andexclusive images are in the realm of modern scientific publishing. Also, uncertainties in thedevelopment of copyright and publishing contracts arise.

Aligning with feminism: Critical autoethnographic reflections of a profeminist heterosexual male teacher educator

In the last two decades, education scholarship has made significant progress in advancing the feminist social justice agenda with women scholars having been almost entirely the drivers of this movement. Women scholars in teacher education have been successful in establishing and consolidating this disciplinary field of study quite firmly in the teacher education curriculum. Despite this, many forms of oppression, including domestic or intimate partner violence and sex- and gender-based violence, continue to plague South African universities and society in general. The current COVID-19 pandemic's mandatory home confinement restrictions have further exacerbated the conditions for individuals likely to experience domestic violence. Men have been relatively silent and inactive in this social justice project. There is also limited extant scholarship that addresses the role that profeminist men might play in this social justice enterprise. There is also little work that attempts to understand the level of sophistication with which men understand feminism, determine with which feminisms men might align themselves, and the accountability and responsibility that might come with assuming certain positions. In this critical autoethnographic piece, I engage with the questions of how critical pedagogical encounters in a teacher education course might serve as disruptive devices that trouble stubbornly resistant gendered socialisations. I draw on my experiences as a teacher educator as I struggle to locate and identify my own profeminist positionality and the tensions this presents. I contemplate the poststructuralist caution about writing (my)self into a text given that the writing self is an evolving/changing self. I reflect on my attempt to disrupt obliviousness as I contemplate the prospect of self-disclosure as a point of entry for profeminist men's praxis in a teacher education programme subscribed to by young men (and women) deeply socialised in a patriarchal history and culture.

Construcción del concepto de Currículum en los contextos educativos

This article elucidates the concept of curriculum, in an entitative way to educational processes. It consists of a documentary investigation that tries to account for the construction of the curriculum both chronologically in principle and from the educational perspective in a second instance. A panoramic tour is made of the main international authors and a small emphasis on national authors, since there is a great development in this disciplinary field by Mexican researchers. The importance of this work lies mainly in the former confining the term curriculum only to the curriculum or curriculum mesh, however it has countless elements that give directionality to the educational process in terms of actors, methodology, infrastructure, programmatic contents, etc.

First Comments on Emilio Pasquini’s Papers

The essay is divided into three parts: in the first it offers an overview of the most recent studies dedicated to archives in person, in the disciplinary field of Italianistics and in that of Archivistics; in the second it outlines a biographical profile of the subject producing the archive; in the last one some observations on the archive are made.

Las teorías del discurso y la Historia de las ideas latinoamericanas: ampliaciones metodológicas / Discourse Studies and History of Latin American Ideas: Methodological Extensions

El presente artículo señala puntos de convergencia metodológica y reflexión teórica entre los estudios del discurso y la propuesta de una Historia de las ideas latinoamericanas de Arturo Roig. En consecuencia, se caracteriza a la Historia de las Ideas como un campo disciplinar que se interroga sobre un amplio sistema de relaciones socio-históricas que hacen a la configuración geo-política de lo Latinoamericano y a las formas de objetivación que se han construido en torno él. El problema que da forma a este trabajo se focaliza en la búsqueda de herramientas que permitan visibilizar la materialización de lo ideológico en el discurso. Es por ello que se focaliza en la noción de “ampliaciones metodológicas” de las indagaciones filosóficas por influencia de la Semiótica y el Análisis del Discurso. Se asume, además, una concepción metodológica del Análisis del Discurso como un campo interdisciplinar que propende a la comprensión de las actividades comunicativas en interacción permanente con las condiciones sociales en las que se producen. ABSTRACT This article presents some methodological and theoretical reflections on the links between discourse studies and Arturo Roig’s proposal for a History of Latin American Ideas. This discipline is defined as a disciplinary field that questions a broad system of socio-historical relationships that make up the geo-political configuration of Latin America. The problem that this work organizes focuses on the ideological dimension of the discourse. That is why it focuses on the notion of “methodological extensions” of philosophical inquiries under the influence of Semiotics and Speech Analysis. Furthermore, a methodological conception of Discourse Analysis is assumed as an interdisciplinary field that tends to understand communicative activities in permanent interaction with the social conditions in which they occur.

Neoliberalism and Academia in Communication and Media Studies: A New Institutional Framework

The disciplinary field of communication refers to a changing object of study, whose material delimitation depends on the political, socioeconomic and technological contexts in which it develops. These factors must be considered as structural elements, as they determine the knowledge demands and agenda of academia. This article aims to describe the keys to understanding the influence of neoliberalism as an ideology and structure in the academic institutionalisation of the field of communication. The analysis will take into special consideration the institutional dimension of research activity as a determining factor to understand the standards that define the dominant paradigm in neoliberal academia. These standards are shared by professionals in relation to working routines, research methodologies, objects of study, theoretical procedures, academic contexts, and dominant traditions, as well as strategies for the development of professional careers.

The Dilemma of Wildfire Definition: What It Reveals and What It Implies

This paper presents the results of an explorative survey, based on a questionnaire sent by email, about how wildfire experts, operating in different countries, perceive wildfire and express their mindset by defining “wildfire” from a list of 14 terms and how they justify their preference for the term selected as the most important. Using a five-point Likert Scale, results from 221 valid replies indicate a general convergence toward a reduced number of terms. Six of them exhibit a mean >3.20 (Disturbance, Natural hazard, Climate-sensitive hazard, Socio-ecological hazard, Socio-ecological disturbance, andSocial-ecological hazard). The three most preferred terms (i.e.,Disturbance, Natural hazard, andClimate-sensitive hazard)reflect wildfire as a natural process or phenomenon (about 59% of the replies). The three terms characterized by both the social and ecological adjectives (i.e.,Socio-ecological hazard, Socio-ecological disturbance, Social-ecological hazard) occupy relatively less favorable positions in the ranking. For each term, a synthesis of the explanations given by the respondents is provided, together with a critical comment. Our findings show very different perceptions of wildfires inclusively within the same disciplinary field. In addition, for the same term selected, different definitions are often presented. This reflects sectorial, disciplinary, and personal perspectives of the wildfire phenomenon and the lack of a common understanding of wildfire “nature” (i.e., its own identity). The different perceptions on wildfire concept influence the knowledge that can be used by decision makers to improve wildfire management policies. This work puts into perspective one of the most widespread problems in science: the lack of appropriate and similar terminology across different scientific fields dealing with the same problem. A common conceptualization of the nature of wildfires and the creation of a common language across different scientific fields related to wildfires is of paramount importance to address the complexity of the existing problems, and enhance an interactive communication not only among scientific community but also with stakeholders and citizens.

Perspectivas georepresentacionais na operacionalização de um Atlas do Patrimônio Territorial

Heritage, as a concept and disciplinary field, undergoes conceptual expansions, aimed to overcome the conservation-development dichotomy, in two perspectives: spatial, by embracing scales beyond the object’s scale; and temporal, for inserting the procedural perspective of the territory as a social construction. Heritage enlarged to a territorial scale requires research methods that go through architecture and approach the field of Geography. As a potential method, the Territorialist Information Systems are presented, reviewing base data from the Atlas of Territorial Heritage, in order to compose a diachronic-evolutionary framework, showing processes of dissipation and maintenance of heritage in João Neiva – Espírito Santo.

Renegotiating Disciplinary Fields in the Life Sciences

The general problem around which this Special Issue revolves is that the way in which science is organized into specialties can have negative consequences on the progress of knowledge [...]

Parameters of variation in the use of words in empirical research writing

Empirical research writing is one of the primary means of disseminating knowledge in academia. It is through this particular form of knowledge dissemination that a rich body of scientific knowledge about a given phenomenon is accumulated. This paper explores patterns of variation in the language of this specific sub-register of academic writing, as reflected in the use of words in different sections of empirical research articles from across ten disciplinary fields. An inductive approach was adopted through which patterns of specificity in vocabulary use were systematically identified, triangulated and verified using different methods of data analysis. The results presented in this study show that the lexical choices academics make in the process of composing their research papers are differentially affected by the standards and conventions of scholarly activities in their field. It was found that such conventions have the potential to govern the delineation of authors’ linguistic decisions at the most basic levels, such as the lexis.

Trajetória e corporalidade da produção científica sobre Bibliografia: um estudo preliminar a partir do Portal de Periódicos Capes (1960-2019)

Objetivo: mapear a produção científica sobre Bibliografia no Portal de Periódicos da Capes, desde o ano de 1960 a 2019, buscando-se refletir sobre os direcionamentos de pesquisa que essa disciplina vem recebendo em seu arcabouço teórico. Método: a pesquisa foi efetuada junto ao portal de periódicos da Capes, nos dias 09 e 10 de outubro de 2019, mediante unicamente a seleção de publicações (artigos) relacionadas à temática “Bibliografia”. As buscas foram editadas e personalizadas a partir do item “Buscar Assunto”, optando-se pelo refinamento no item “Busca Avançada”. O preenchimento dos campos foi limitado aos fins da investigação, utilizando-se termos específicos e operadores booleanos. Foram determinados os períodos entre 1º de janeiro de 1960 a 10 de outubro de 2019 para as buscas. A investigação apresenta abordagem qualitativa e trata-se de um estudo exploratório e descritivo executado também por meio de revisão da literatura concernente à área. Resultado: levantou-se que as publicações sobre Bibliografia dentro de um determinado período direcionam-se mais para sua funcionalidade como ferramenta de mapeamento e representação dos saberes e do conhecimento para outras áreas, ou seja, sua aplicação como produto e atividade. No entanto, a partir das duas últimas décadas, pelo menos no que se refere às publicações científicas em forma de artigos de periódicos, já se percebeu um maior aprofundamento da sua esfera como campo disciplinar científico, bem como por suas interfaces teóricas. Conclusões: este estudo limitou-se à investigação dos artigos científicos publicados nos últimos 59 anos. Nesse sentido, entende-se e sugere-se o desenvolvimento de trabalhos que tratem das publicações em diferentes formatos como de livros, bases de repertórios ou repositórios, eventos científicos, entre outras áreas de disseminação científicas e em variados períodos temporais e/ou recortes disciplinares, para preenchimento das lacunas investigativas ainda existentes. Iniciativas que fortaleceriam ainda mais o arcabouço científico da Bibliografia.

A Pedagogy of Community

ABSTRACT The key argument of this article is that a pedagogy that centralizes community-based learning in critical social theory courses fosters analytical skills beyond such courses and beyond the undergraduate classroom. Based on a gender and sexuality studies course where the content is critical social theory in nonwestern context, this article describes three strategies that facilitate community-based learning. These strategies draw from equity-based teaching as advocated in multicultural education theories, and in the salience of community as advocated in feminist, multicultural, critical pedagogy, and social justice education theories. As the outcomes discussed illuminate, this pedagogical model supports students with limited prior experience with or access to learning methods associated with reading and writing and, in general, learners of critical social theory. The pedagogy is applicable to theory-based courses in a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields and contributes to the demystifying and decolonizing of theory from charges of elitism and/or irrelevance.

Interfaces (for) Diffracting Technobodies: A Science-Humanities-Design Perspective for an Algorithmic Somatechnics

In response to some current examples of experimental interface design in times of the COVID-19 pandemic – corona data dashboards, a contact tracking app, and an art intervention of distance design in public space – this article brings perspectives and insights from multiple disciplinary fields, several concepts, and a set of arguments together for a ‘more comprehensive understanding’ ( Repko and Szostak 2021 ) of how these cases of design build (on) an algorithmic somatechnics. We argue that this type of understanding perhaps deserves its own naming for which we propose the bracket of the ‘creative humanities’ ( Bleeker, Verhoeff, and Werning 2020 ) – a field that borrows productively from science, humanities, and design. Specifically, we aim to develop such an interdisciplinary perspective to respond to and specify the popular understanding, often reproduced in scholarship, of how technobodies are simultaneously created by and co-creating algorithmic media. We do this by bringing the perspective of diffractive reading to these media with the help of interface theory in order to diagnose that this understanding of the coming-into-being and functioning of technobodies is founded on an interpretation that positions agency on the side of either the social or on the side of the technical, or in their inter-relation. To this interpretation we respond with a diffractive interface approach to traverse this socio-technical constellation and think with the specificity of computation. We focus on the interface as an apparatus within and beyond which the technobody as datum is a locus of an ontological dynamicity that can have un-easy agential effects. Conceptualising the body as a somatechnical datum that may have un-easy effects is particularly relevant in our (post-)pandemic era that requires designs for distance that can afford maximum space for agency, mobility, and presence, yet confronts us with unattainable clarity and security.

Corte urbano, as ambiências situadas e o “paradigma indiciário”

Este artigo apresenta uma discussão teórica sobre o valor heurístico dos instrumentos descritivos da cidade nas pesquisas sobre as ambiências situadas, a partir de uma reflexão sobre o corte urbano e o modelo epistemológico que Carlo Ginzburg chamou de “indiciário”. Essa reflexão foi realizada no âmbito de uma pesquisa de campo interdisciplinar sobre o problema da coleta de lixo doméstico na cidade de São Paulo, Brasil. Primeiramente, buscamos caracterizar os elementos dispersos e heterogêneos – relativos aos sujeitos e ao espaço construído – que o corte permite reunir enquanto “pistas” que permitem visualizar uma ambiência, concebida enquanto unidade. Em seguida, discutimos o estatuto teórico dessa unidade, pensada como estrutura. Introduzimos, para tanto, a distinção entre objeto real e objeto de conhecimento, formulada em inícios do século XX pelo fundador da linguística moderna, Ferdinand de Saussure. Nosso intuito é com isso evitar uma concepção de espaço baseada em uma ideia substancialista de “totalidade”. A partir dessas considerações, definiremos o corte não como uma “representação do espaço” (um objeto real), mas como o “registro de um olhar” sobre ele (um objeto teórico). Por último, enquanto tecnologia de escrita, o corte será caracterizado como uma ferramenta para a fabricação de um olhar compartilhado sobre a cidade. Nesse sentido, ele pode contribuir para estabelecer um terreno comum de debate entre os diversos e heterogêneos campos disciplinares e registros de saber sobre a experiência sensível convocados pela noção de ambiência.

Academically engaged or not? An exploratory study on modelling and assessing the engagement of first-year students at a research-intensive university in Finland

The first study year is very decisive in terms of a smooth transition into and engagement with university education. The main goal of this study is to develop a multidimensional model for assessing student engagement and use it with first-year students in a research-intensive university in Finland. Based on theoretical modelling and three-step piloting, an online Nexus self-assessment questionnaire was designed and used to conduct an annual survey of first-year students from 2013 to 2018 in the target university. A total of 1936 first-year students from different disciplinary fields responded. Three different engagement clusters were observed, with each representing a very different student relationship with engagement and learning. Academically engaged students showed a very balanced relationship with academic orientation in terms of their studies and study-related communities, whereas non-academically engaged students revealed tendencies towards certain knowledge-seeking and task-avoidance behaviours. Loosely engaged students seemed to also have a shallower academic orientation and, in addition, a weaker relationship with study-related communities. The three identified engagement clusters were also distributed differently within disciplinary fields. As an implication of the study, the way in which academic teaching and learning communities at the studied institution can benefit from the engagement assessment results and offer more focused support to students is discussed.