Part Of My Work Research Articles

A tale of two reviews: Examining the content and ideology of two single-blind reviews

As part of my work as an educator, I see the need to surface for discussion what might indeed be considered as acts of oppression on the part of peer reviewers when certain aspects of knowing and meaning are misrecognized, obscured, or suppressed. Drawing on observations concerning coercive and oppressive relational and educational practices found in Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed as well as scholarly works in Critical Discourse Analysis critiquing inequitable practices within academic and social domains, I argue that a more academically (and socially) accountable, conscionable and humanizing alternative is one which engenders greater openness to questions concerning: (1) who it might be that gets to determine what counts as (publishable) knowledge; and (2) how such formulations of knowledge may be tied to powerful or ideologized ways of knowing and meaning making. This article is also an appeal for greater awareness that acts which work directly or indirectly to silence earnest attempts to highlight inequitable and/or dehumanizing educational beliefs and practices are also acts which will disadvantage, marginalize, or silence people directly or indirectly involved, including parents and children who may be placed at the receiving end of such inequities and inhumanities.

The Math Behind the Movies

Have you ever wondered why the things you see around you look the way they do? A big part of my work as a computer graphics researcher is to answer this question, so that we can simulate real-world objects using computers. This work is important for creating movies and video games that are visually appealing to the audience. However, there are also many other applications of realistic computer graphics, such as training, product design, architecture, and others. In this article, I will tell you how we create realistic images of the world using computers, and how my work improved the way we simulate skin and hair in virtual characters. It will give you a new perspective on the magic and beauty of the visual scenery that we experience in our everyday lives and on the computer-generated images and movies that imitate these natural scenes.

Towards an “Ecumenical” Council Inside of Orthodoxy!

Ecumenism is a recurrent theme in Orthodox theological debates, but the syntagma “Orthodox ecumenism” is rarely used because it seems to be very restrictive and inappropriate. However, in exceptional situations, such as a war between two Orthodox peoples, I think it might be more than necessary. In the first part of this essay, I will discuss how the mirage of a “third” Rome and the partnership with the Kremlin makes the Russian Church an adversary of ecumenism inside of Orthodoxy. Any Church that blesses a war, aggression, and confrontation and shows imperial tendencies is excluded de facto from the communion with other Churches. In the second part of my work, I will analyze the consequences of the “schism” created by Patriarch Kirill in the bosom of Orthodoxy. What were (or what were not!) the positions of other Orthodox Churches when Patriarch Kirill blessed the war and betrayed the principles of the Gospel of Christ? Why is there a need for a so-called “Ecumenical Orthodox Council” and what are the chances of this happening?

“Collaboration with parents isn’t a burden. It’s just a natural part of my work.” - Parental Involvement in Switzerland – An Analysis of Attitudes and Practices of Swiss Primary School Teachers

The subject of home-school relationship is normatively charged and has increasingly become the focal point of pedagogical discourse in the past years. The article reports results of the project “Home-School Cooperation”, which was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation. This qualitative study examines, how teachers shape their interaction with parents. The main research question is, which habitualised background convictions guide the interaction of teachers with parents. The data was collected in 10 Swiss primary schools. 39 interviews with teachers and headmasters were transcribed for case reconstructions. They were analysed using sequence analysis according to the method of objective hermeneutics (Oevermann, 2000, 2002a) and interpreted in the tradition of the “Deutungsmusteranalyse” (analyses of patterns of interpretation) (Dewe, 1984). We refer to Oevermann’s theory of professionalisation (Oevermann, 1996, 2002b). Main results are: Teacher–parent cooperation differs as follows: active vs. passive focus on action; dominant client focus; the way the school’s interests is enforced on parents. Teachers show three different interpretations on school–family relationship. “Schools and families as unconnected agents of socialization”; “schools and families as disparate actors of socialization” and “cooperation as a partnership in a professionalised work alliance”. Moreover, seven super-individually interaction patterns can be reconstructed.

The story behind an exhibited rag rug

In my paper, I describe my insights as manager of the textile workshop at the Department of Design at Linnaeus University, as well as how we teach material-based work. Part of my work as a workshop manager is to conduct a major clean-up at the end of every year. Last year, when I was standing in front of a pile of waste textiles, I began to reflect on how this pile of textile had been transformed from well-working material into waste. In a previous project with the research group Praktikforum, together with my colleagues, I explored what kinds of waste we produced when we made material-based artistic work. Thus, it was no surprise that practice-based work produced waste. The surprise was what I could understand from it. Looking closer into the waste, I obtained a deeper understanding of what had happened in the workshop during the year; how the students had used the material, what they had learned and what sometimes went wrong became obvious. I gained a deeper understanding of how we use, understand and teach/learn about materials and how we can develop the workshop by learning from the waste. At the same time, I learned the technique of ‘inbraiding’. For me, this was a new craft technique, in which waste textiles can be used when making rugs. I saw the opportunity to use the waste and upcycle it. By exhibiting the rug, I want to discuss the possibility of working more sustainably with crafts.

Transition towards the new normal.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash. The increased incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infections marks the beginning of the eighth wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic in Japan. Despite measures against infection, the Omicron variant has spread and caused hospital outbreak clusters in the Respiratory Medicine Ward of our hospital. As a ward manager, I have been struggling with infection control. The prolonged COVID-19 epidemic has brought about a new normal, including positive changes. Despite the Japanese government's policies to promote gender equality, Japan's gender gap index ranking was 116th out of 146 countries in 2022, remaining the lowest among developed countries (https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/). The rate of women leaving their jobs after childbirth is considerably high in the medical field. This is likely due to women typically being responsible for the majority of housework and childcare, as well as long working hours and the work demands of a primary care physician in hospitals related to the exclusivity of the patient-doctor relationship, among other factors (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/resp.14172). However, the COVID-19 epidemic has prompted a transition into a new normal. A team-based approach was established to deal with sudden illnesses of medical staff. Hybrid or on-demand academic congresses have eliminated the need to travel to attend even international conferences, enabling many more doctors and researchers to maintain their expertise. Male as well as female doctors are now more likely to take time off to look after their families. My own husband has realized that we should share equal responsibility for our family: ‘Who will look after the children if my wife is infected? A nanny? Our elderly parents? No, it's me’. The rapid, widespread use of the web or online meetings has also greatly changed part of my work. In 2019, the Japanese Respiratory Society nominated me to join a team of young researchers (the Empowering Next Generation Allergist/Immunologist Toward Global Excellence Task Force Toward 2030). I had initially intended to refuse the offer because I could not feasibly attend frequent meetings in Tokyo. However, with the COVID-19 epidemic, meetings were changed from in-person to online; this made working as part of the team more accessible for me. In addition, it has become easier to conduct multicentre clinical studies. Project kick-off meetings can be organized online; long distance is no longer a barrier. Although not yet ubiquitous, telemedicine and telerehabilitation are gaining attention due to the COVID-19 epidemic. I hope that similar positive changes will continue in the post-COVID-19 era to create the next new normal. None declared.

The Question of the New

The editors of this special issue of Conversations: The Journal of Cavellian Studies invited contributors to write on Stanley Cavell and Thomas Kuhn. Unfortunately, this paper will end with Kuhn. The reason is simple: I found that I couldn’t begin writing anything on Cavell and the new before I had set up the literary and historical framework for the project, and before I had discussed Ludwig Wittgenstein’s work on aspect-seeing and Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962). These are the parts of my work in progress that I’ll share here.

From the President andIFSTNews

From the President and<scp>IFST</scp>News

Review: How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, by Clint Smith

Review: <i>How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America</i>, by Clint Smith

Producing an Antisemitic Consensus within the Framework of the “Judenjagd”: The Role of Poles in the Holocaust Based on the Murder of Nachman Blumental’s Family in Wielopole Skrzyńskie during the German Occupation

This article – which is based on the records of Nachman Blumental that I discovered as part of my work on his archive material and that I brought to light, as well as on the documentation of two official investigations – deals with the complicity of Poles – uniformed (the policja granatowa, or Blue Police) and civilians – in the Nazi project to kill every Jew without exception in Dębica County during the German occupation. I analyze the mechanism that set in motion antisemitic violence within the framework of the Judenjagd, i.e. the Jew hunt. I argue that it was attitudes and behaviors in the environment that determined the effectiveness of the German Nazi project to persecute and murder all Jews without exception. The majority group plays the role of “second instance” (Elżbieta Janicka). By reconstructing the crime against Ariel Blumental and Maria Blumental in June 1943 in Brzeziny, Mała and Wielopole Skrzyńskie, and by deconstructing the mystification of the crime by the inhabitants, I uncover the foundations of this process and show how the mechanism of self-representation as non-involved functions. “Participating observers” (Elżbieta Janicka) mask their own participation in the murder of Nachman Blumental’s family. The task, then, is to interpret both what is said and what is not said. The crime discussed in the article is emblematic in that it sheds light on the socio-cultural framework of the Holocaust and its landscape. It shows the loneliness of those who were hiding, handed over and sentenced to death by their neighbors.

Protecting Cetaceans In The Yangtze

As part of my work at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan since 1982, I spent twenty years with Qi Qi [pronounced chee-chee], the world’s only captive baiji Yangtze River Dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer, “the flag-bearer who was left behind”).

“Everyone Has Their Own Places”: Mapping as a Storied Approach to the Study of Youth Identity

This article highlights part of my work with ten 16 and 17-year-olds at two Canadian secondary schools. My multiple case study sought to make visible my participants’ stories of place: how did they construe the role of place within their own lives? How did they record their journeys within, through, and between places? I share how my participants articulated their place-identities as dynamic encounters rather than fixed surfaces (Massey, 2005; Ingold, 2016). Employing story-mapping as a research method encouraged my participants to articulate their lives in their own terms, affording me the opportunity to understand how they negotiated their identities.

Is My Physics Textbook Sexist?

This paper is intended to foster conversations about stereotypes, prejudice, and our day-to-day work in the classroom. The focus is on sexism and how it can affect our teaching, particularly looking at physics textbooks. Maybe you are already familiar with debates around feminist movements, gender studies, patriarchy, performance, and all of those issues common to people like me, whose research work considers the intersections of gender, sexuality, and physics teaching. I (first author) am a professor in a physics department; because of my work with pre- and in-service physics teacher education, I frequent several high schools. In my experience, many physics teachers (and other teachers too!) have a hard time seeing how these gender discussions connect to their classroom; part of my work is to help them identify these connections. This paper was motivated by my failure to detect broader gender connections in physics textbooks.

The volume of the anatomical connections of the frontal lobes

The question of the connection between the frontal lobes and the various parts of the brain still remains far from solved completely, despite a whole series of studies in this direction. In view of this, at the suggestion of the highly respected teacher V.M.Bekhterev, I undertook this work with the aim of clarifying this issue in detail. My study consisted in the destruction of the frontal lobes in animals with the subsequent processing of their brains according to the Marchi method, and in addition, in a detailed study of physiological phenomena in the operated animals. But regarding the second part of my work, I intend to speak in another section, limiting myself at the present to the anatomical part. Before proceeding to the presentation of the results obtained by me, I will try to briefly outline the literature of the question of interest to me. The literature on the connections of the frontal lobe with various areas of the brain is directly adjacent to the literature on the connections of the cerebral cortex in general and seems to be very extensive, which is why I will confine myself to a more detailed sketch of a part of it, concerning more or less controversial issues, mentioning only briefly about the research on which there is a contradiction.

Circular Digital Relations

= Interactive documentary are epistemological tools that can help shaping and fostering comparative reflections in collaborative ethnographic projects. This paper analyses the process of planning and coding a digital platform – an interactive documentary – as part of my work in the Food Citizens? ERC Project. I will consider images and lines of codes that exemplify how making the digital platform mediate the processes of comparison and collaboration. Specifically, I discuss how the process that guided the i-doc coding comprised of collaborative sessions by the research team members to make an inventory of possible comparisons between field sites, while a bespoken comparison dial makes it possible for the users to digitally browse through them.

Roaring Trains and Ringing Bells: A Stylistic Analysis of Soundscape in Charles Dickens’s Dombey and Son

In my essay I investigate Charles Dickens’s innovative use of language combined with a specific reference to the acoustic environment, which characterizes most of his works and defines his pervasive style. Rhythms, alliterations, the use of anaphora and onomatopoeia, and the variations of register in Dombey and Son constitute the most visible and ‘audible’ examples of the relationship between language and soundscape, as I explain in the first part of my work. Later, I explore how, in Dombey and Son, Dickens surprises and displaces the reader by using internal deviation and omitting the normally expected clues of context and coherence. I analyse these linguistic and stylistic aspects in the chapters that refer to the railway boom and the sounds of trains and ringing bells that accompany the troubled misadventures of one of the novel’s main characters.

In Pursuit of Slowness

In Pursuit of Slowness

Fuzzytechie languaging and consilience: Dataphilosophy and transdisciplinary digital force for justice

Digitalization of our educational systems is moving faster and deeper into our institutions. I applaud it because it has the potential to save time and effort, allowing me to spend more time on the most important part of my work as a scholar. But I am regularly sick to my stomach about what I applaud, because there is no potential and any news or justice in it unless I conquer it. Moreover, unless I do- conquer that is, it works as much against (non)knowledges as the opposite, and this is speeding up. Hence, I speculate with the concepts of speed and force. I ask, how is it possible to add or speed up and strengthen digital diversity for justice to highlight the entangled contours of knowledges, inequality, equality and quality in education? My gut feeling tells me that my subjective professionalism is under siege and that I need to take back the concept of objectivity to survive. It is paradoxically slow but fast, paradoxically objective but subjective, strong but weak. It implies a liberating loss of control to importance. Education becoming eventicized, professionals and teachers becoming transdisciplinary dataphilosophers.

More than just warriors: Mythical and archetypal images of the hero in Swahili literature

Since ancient time until today, the image of the hero has influenced literary works universally. The “hero” becomes mythical only after his death, and through forms of remembrance that can be realized in other literary productions in which his figure is re-create and transmitted through fictitious characters. The central focus of my paper is to examine, within archetypal theories on myth and “hero”, the great figures of two Swahili warriors, namelyLiongo Fumo, one of the greatest warrior-hero figures of the Swahili oral tradition, and the chief Mkwawa of the Hehe people, who fought against the German rule in the former Tanganyka, whose deeds have been reinvented and described in modern written literature. Both Liongo Fumo and Mkwawa have acquired the status of mythical warriors, and as other East African heroes, they inspired poets and writers becoming symbols of bravery and national consciousness to which the historical and cultural memory of old and new generations refer. Despite the importance given to the figure of the two great heroes, part of my work has been dedicated to the presentation of those who can be defined as ‘minor heroes’, who nevertheless represent a way of generational change to look at literature as to a bridge that combines tradition and modernity through historical and mythical memory.

Interview

interview