Series Of Letters Research Articles

Critical Discourse Analysis of Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is part of Discourse Analysis which deals with the way meaning is further explored beyond the realm of sentences. Its use in literature takes the exploration further by making critical inquiry in to the source of the problem or the conflict. By critically looking at conversations and writings that are being used in the society, Critical Discourse Analysis aims to attach the source of all problems in a story to a systemic failure of socio-political powers. In so doing, it tries to take an active role to correct the wrongs in the society by highlighting the conversational and textual rhetoric of the state or related entities. This article investigates the ways and methods in which Aravind Adiga has used discourse in his novel, White Tiger to highlight the plight of the millions of poor Indians who were living under the shadows of the few economically affluent political elites in postcolonial India. His novel, crafted in the form of a series of letters addressed to the Chinese premier, utilizes the ordinary discourse of the people in the lower strata of the society. Techniques of satire and dark humor have predominantly been used to narrate the individual story of the protagonist in a way that represents the wider society which was struggling to break the ‘rooster coop’ and survive with economic and political liberty.

Personal choice shields against affective influences on effort in a "do your best" task: Effects on cardiac response.

This experiment (N = 113) tested whether personal choice vs. external assignment of task characteristics moderates the effect of incidental affective stimulation on effort-related cardiovascular response in a "do your best" task context. When participants could choose themselves the color of the stimuli (i.e., a series of letters to be recalled) used in a memory test, we expected high task commitment and willingness to mobilize resources, strong action shielding, and thus low receptivity for incidental affective influences. By contrast, when the color was externally assigned, we expected low willingness to mobilize resources, weak action shielding, and thus strong affective influences on effort. As predicted, participants in the assigned color condition showed stronger cardiac pre-ejection period reactivity during task execution when exposed to sad music than when exposed to happy music. These music effects did not appear among participants who could personally choose the color. Here, effort stayed high independently of the happy or sad background music. The present study demonstrates the moderating effect of personal choice on resource mobilization in a task of unfixed difficulty with happy and sad background music as incidental affective influence.

Dear sabbatical committee: a plea, a reverie, a provocation

ABSTRACT In this performance text, the performer situates the audience as an imaginary sabbatical committee and issues a series of letters that demonstrate a plea for understanding performance scholarship, a flight of fancy imaging the dreamy delight of a performance art project in process, and a provocation and declamation for the importance of performance studies in the contemporary moment.

EAducation: Letters from Hawai'i to Palestine

Abstract: This essay explores ways to strengthen solidarity from Hawai'i to Palestine, in our classrooms and organizing spaces. We are particularly interested in the role that stories have to play in forging relationships of care. We look to the power that stories hold in creating bonds of friendship that are at the core of political community, and to their importance in EAducation, which we contend is central to solidarity. (As it includes the word EA , or sovereignty, breath, rising, the term EAducation bridges liberation and learning inside and beyond the classroom.) Written as a series of letters, to our readers and to one another, we theorize the significance of letters as what the Palestinian scholar and organizer Sarah Ihmoud calls "material expressions of an abolitionist praxis of decolonial love." In their form, our letters also put into practice the principles we embrace. As we explore and enact ways to build solidarity, we look to the work we do in our own classrooms, and to organizing we have done as members of Students and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at the University of Hawai'i (SFJP@UH). In documenting this history, we hope that the stories we tell will help to inspire more such stories, strengthening what Steven Salaita calls "inter/nationalism," and what Haunani-Kay Trask calls "the rope of resistance."

The Opera that Never was: Dylan Thomas and Igor Stravinsky’s Projected Collaboration

In 1953 there was a projected collaboration between Dylan Thomas and Igor Stravinsky: an opera whose libretto was to be written by the poet and set to music by the composer. Unfortunately, due to Thomas’s death that same year, this plan never materialised. The aim of this article is to offer a detailed exploration of the context within which this project originated and what it entailed for the poet, especially in relation to the direction where Thomas’s work was taking him before his death. The opera with Stravinsky could have been the culmination of the poet’s work inasmuch as it brought together his love of sound, rhythm and music, the horror of the war, his fascination with language and the near-extinction of human life. Moreover, the artists were able to exchange a series of letters before Thomas’s death. The second contribution of our article is the publication of Stravinsky’s letters to Thomas, which have not been previously published. Whilst the narrative of their encounters and relationship has been shaped in certain ways by different writers, a close examination of the primary source materials—the accounts of friends, the content of the letters and the circumstances in which they were written help shed light on this highly promising, but uncompleted, project.

Hakikat Membaca di Kelas Tinggi di Tingkat SD/MI

In the world of education, reading skills are very fundamental. Apart from all learning processes that are based on reading and writing activities, reading proficiency is a stepping stone for every person's success, both in the school context and in life in society. This research aims to find out more about the nature of reading in higher grades at the SD/MI level. The method used in this research is a qualitative method based on literature analysis studies. Reading is the ability to use thoughts and actions to carry out visual activities by pronouncing a series of letters into words and sentences, mastering reading techniques and understanding the content of the reading correctly. The aim of reading in higher grades is to develop critical and creative reading skills. Students are not only required to capture information, but also analyze, assess and use information. Based on the research results, it can be concluded that understanding the nature of reading in higher grades has a great influence on students' understanding of advanced reading.

Enjoying what comes naturally: The Church of England and Sexuality in the 1930s

This article begins by outlining the changing approach in Anglican attitudes to contraception at the Lambeth Conference of 1930, where birth control was permitted for married couples and sex separated from the possibility of procreation. The logical extension of this teaching, as was noted by Bishop Charles Gore, was that other forms of sexual pleasure, including homosexuality, which was increasingly seen as a ‘natural’ condition, might eventually be sanctioned by the church. Later in the 1930s, a series of letters by Robert Reid to Cosmo Gordon Lang, archbishop of Canterbury, shows the beginnings of a campaign for a change of policy. At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Anglican writer Kenneth Ingram published Sex-Morality Tomorrow, which pressed for full homosexual equality and provoked calls to William Temple to suppress the book. 1940 proved an inopportune moment for reform of church teaching on homosexuality, which continues to elicit widespread controversy.

Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana

<p>“Preguntas y frases” is an imagined letter from my grandmother. It is composed of Spanish words and phrases (including missing accents and misspellings) as my grandmother, Esther, wrote them in 1983 in a series of letters she sent to my mother while my mother was living abroad in Ecuador. In those letters, Esther spoken plainly with her daughter—principally, by questioning her decision to leave the United States and asking that my mother back home to Calexico, California.</p><p>Many years after my grandmother’s death, my mother found these letters tucked away in the house attic. When my mother shared these letters with me, it was startling for me to see and hear so clearly my grandmother’s voice and way of speaking after so many years since her passing. In response, I wrote “Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana.” The title is inspired by Teresa Palomo Acosta’s poem “Preguntas y frases para una bisabuela española” in which Acosta reflects on her Spanish heritage by writing a letter to her great Spanish grandmother. In contrast, “Preguntas y frases para una nieta americana” reflects on American assimilation and what is lost, protected, and honored across three generations of Mexican American women. The letter is my imagination of what my grandmother would say to me today if she were to write me—and speak plainly—as she had with my mother all those years ago.</p>

General Problem-solving Skills Can be Enhanced by Short-time Use of Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

Future students are confronted with a complex world that demands the ability to solve problems in unstructured, undefined, and unfamiliar situations. The aim of the present study was to investigate the development of problem-solving skills through the implementation of Problem-Based Learning (PBL). While previous research has primarily focused on content-related and long-term measurements when examining the effects of PBL, this study took a different approach by exploring the general increase in problem-solving skills resulting from PBL. The sample consisted of 90 second-semester students who were assessed at three different time points using three subscales of the Wilde-Intelligenz-Test I & II: analogies (AL), letter series (BR) and numerical series (ZN). The findings revealed a significant improvement in general problem-solving abilities within the PBL group. These results provide valuable insights into the impact of PBL on the development of general problem-solving skills, even within a domain-independent and short-term context. Lecturers are encouraged to consider implementing PBL in their study programs, as it equips graduates with the necessary skills to tackle the challenges of today’s dynamic and constantly changing world.

Why together, why apart? An epistolary discussion about Yugoslavia and its remnants

ABSTRACT In this unusual contribution, three prominent younger scholars of the post-Yugoslav region discuss through a series of letters what was socialist Yugoslavia as political community and what came to replace it. Igor Štiks claims that every political community, past and present, is based on the citizenship argument that imposes itself as hegemonic. He explains why we are together as community in the first place, who belongs, and who is excluded. Štiks tries to understand what arguments socialist Yugoslavia was built on and what were the arguments used to subvert and finally destroy it. Ivan Đorđević responds by highlighting how the new states were built on a combination of ethnic nationalism and savage capitalism, resulting in a series of disasters. Biljana Đorđević explains the life of her post-Yugoslav generation and its sense of gloom. All three authors contrast political events with their own destinies that were determined by where (Sarajevo, Belgrade, Vranje) and when (in 1977 and 1984) they were born, and under what circumstances, personal and political, they came of age. Besides their attempts to understand Yugoslavia’s disintegration and the new post-Yugoslav reality, they reflect upon what the Yugoslav socialist legacy could mean for emancipatory movements in the twenty-first century.

Inter-sexual Mate Competition in Humans: A Historical Example from Seventeenth Century Portugal.

Inter-sexual mate competition occurs any time opposite-sex individuals simultaneously seek to acquire or maintain exclusive access to the same sexual partner. This underappreciated form of mate competition has been anecdotally documented in several avian and mammalian species, and systematically described among Japanese macaques and humans. Here, we extend the concept of inter-sexual mate competition by reassessing a remarkable series of Portuguese letters, penned in 1664 and later discovered and translated by Mott and Assunção (J Homosex 16:91-104, 1989). The letters comprise one side of a correspondence between two males, former lovers who were scrutinized by the Portuguese Inquisition. After ending the relationship, the recipient of the letters was betrothed to a woman, which provoked a jealous response from his jilted male lover and pleas to reunite. We argue that the letters portray a prolonged sequence of inter-sexual mate competition in which a male and female competitor vied for the same man. An established taxonomy of mate competition tactics was applied to the behavior of both competitors illustrating many parallels with contemporary examples of inter-sexual mate competition. Through this comparison, we show that modern mate competition taxonomies can be fruitfully applied to historical texts and that inter-sexual mate competition occurred hundreds of years before the present. Other examples of inter-sexual mate competition are likely to exist in the historical record, providing a rich source of scientific information if appropriate theoretical frameworks are employed. Indeed, any time individuals are attracted to sexual partners who behave in a bisexual manner, then inter-sexual mate competition can ensue with members of the other sex.

Robert Louis Stevenson and German Sāmoa

ABSTRACT This study revisits the writings of Robert Louis Stevenson on German Sāmoa as a valuable archive for understanding the impact of Western colonialism on the Pacific. It examines Stevenson’s anti-colonial perspectives in writings such as A Footnote to History: Eight Years of Trouble in Samoa (1892), his series of letters to The Times in London (1889–1894), and his private correspondence. Stevenson’s analysis of the impact of the Germans’ militarism and meddlesome officialdom, together with their extensive plantation system and use of unfree labour, also provides an important context for reading contemporary Oceanian writers and artists. The varied creative practices of recovery and remediation deployed by Albert Wendt, Sia Figiel, Yuki Kihara, Michel Tuffery and Tony Brunt, are often inspired by cultural memories of German Sāmoa.

Civilising the Scaffold: a renewed carceral space in videoconferencing trials

In this article, I analyse the implication of the spread of videoconferencing for prisoners under pre-trial detention as a technology embedded in a process of civilising punishment by bureaucratising criminal procedure. This is specifically examined through a series of letters from Italian prisoners ‘engaged in struggles', held in maximum security from 2006 to 2020. From a situated perspective, the letters describe videoconferencing as a way of disembodying and recoding the space-time of the prisoners, reducing them to a simulacrum: a series of images, sounds and glances caught by cameras and microphones. This technology ensures, through a both material and virtual geographical solution, efficiency, and security but at the cost of increasing the distance between the judge, society and the accused.

Settler Colonialism in Araucanía: The Mapuche's Defense of Their Lands and Citizenship Rights Through the Medium of Letters in Nineteenth Century Chile

Abstract: As Chilean citizens, the Mapuche peoples were landowners of large tracts of lands in Araucanía, Chile's southern borderlands region between the Bío- Bío and Toltén rivers. This article analyzes a series of letters that Mapuche leaders wrote to state authorities and others in the middle of the nineteenth century. The content of these letters reveals multiple ways that Mapuche leaders argued for the protection of their lands and interests, as the state created policies that actively worked to undermine them through a settler colonization plan. This strategy included appropriating Mapuche lands for outside settlers and denying the Mapuche their citizen rights as Chilean citizens.

En svensk röst från Kaunas och Vilnius1939–1940: Lennart Kjellbergs brev

In this article, I intend to publish a series of letters by Lennart Kjellberg (1913–2004) who had worked as a Swedish lecturer in Lithuania at the University in Kaunas and Vilnius before World War II, in 1939–1940. I met Lennart Kjellberg several times in the early 90s when I, a young scholar after completing Swedish and Nordic studies and a doctorate in historical linguistics, came to Vilnius and started teaching at the University of Vilnius and set up the Department for Scandinavian Studies. We met several times in Uppsala, and Lennart Kjellberg gave me a bundle of copies of his letters, mainly to his bride Ann-Mari Stridbeck written in 1939, encouraging me to publish them. Kjellberg’s letters are an incredibly exciting source of information and insight for those interested in the cultural and political life of Lithuania during that time and in its perception by a young Swedish intellectual. For me, meeting Lennart Kjellberg, besides everything else, was an unexpected collision with the past which had been cut away by Soviet oppression. For those who grew up during the Soviet era, the period before and during the Soviet presence was sort of divided into then and now (before and after World War II). The loss of continuity in Lithuania’s history is perhaps one of its greatest traumas caused by the Soviet period. For this reason, Kjellberg’s letters, most of which are being published here for the first time, not only give us a lively picture of pre-war Lithuania but also contribute to our better understanding of our past and of ourselves.

The Letters of John H. Crowder

In the midst of the American Civil War, sixteen-year-old John H. Crowder, a free person of color, penned a series of letters that offer insight into the experiences, hopes, obstacles, and discrimination faced by young African Americans during the nineteenth century. Serving in the Louisiana Native Guard, one of the Union’s pioneering regiments that welcomed people of color, Crowder writes to declare his youthful ambitions and his unwavering resilience against his often disapproving superior officers. Additionally, within these letters Crowder’s profound love for his mother and a female friend is revealed, along with his determination to secure a stable future for the women in his life. The preservation of Crowder’s letters, alongside the story of his mother's pursuit of a military pension after Crowder’s death, brings to light the oft-overlooked contributions and experiences of African Americans in the post-Antebellum South. In this “Spotlight on Juvenilia,” I delve into the story behind the preservation of Crowder’s letters, exploring the unique challenges and triumphs experienced by young African Americans, as well as their significant role in shaping the Civil War narrative. Moreover, I emphasize the importance of amplifying diverse historical perspectives, particularly those of youth and people of color. By shedding light on the interplay between personal agency and societal constraints for Crowder, this exploration underscores the significance of his community’s voices in reshaping historical discourses and highlights the far-reaching implications of their experiences during this pivotal period in history.

IMPLEMENTASI METODE DRILL UNTUK MENINGKATKAN KEMAMPUAN MEMBACA SISWA KELAS III PADA MATA PELAJARAN BAHASA INDONESIA DI MI MIFTAHUL ULUM PACAR PELUK

Drill is a way of teaching by providing exercises on what students have learned so that they acquire a certain skill. With this in mind, this research is focused on (1) How to implement the Drill method in learning Indonesian for class III at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Ulum (2) How is the effectiveness of learning the drill method in Indonesian class III subjects at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Ulum (3) How improvement of students' reading ability after applying the drill method in class III Indonesian subjects at Madrasah Ibtidaiyah Miftahul Ulum. This type of research is a case study with a case study research approach. Data collection techniques using interviews, observation and documentation. The data analysis technique uses an analysis of checking the validity of the data by extending observations, increasing persistence in research. The results of the study show (1) the application of reading Indonesian using the drill method by students, can be classified into several stages, namely: (a) the opening stage, saying greetings and students answering together then reading hadhoroh, Al-fatihah and a series of short letters (b) core learning, conducting learning (c) closing learning carried out by all students. Then the teacher takes a position in front facing all students to lead the prayer as usual the teacher gives the signal. The results of the study indicate that the drill method can improve students' reading skills, it can be seen that the average value of learning outcomes has increased. The data obtained from participants who completed learning reached 17 students and those who did not completed as many as 10 students with a success percentage of 50%, indicating that there is a improvement of learning outcomes of students who completed reached 18 students and who did not complete as many as 9 students with a percentage of 60%., students who completed learning reached 21 students and those who had not completed as many as 6 students.

The Cummings of Altyre and the search for an ancient genealogy, part 2

Part 1 of this study, in Proceedings volume 151 (Cleary 2022), analysed a tradition of descent built by the Gordon Cummings of Altyre, Moray, from a mix of historical fact, legend and romance, claiming descent from one of the two ‘Red Comyns’ killed by the Bruce party in Dumfries, 1306. In a 150-year genealogy linking the Red Comyns to the first verifiable Cumming resident of Altyre, only two of the names were demonstrably historical persons. Part 2 examines the historical evidence for these two individuals and for whether they were related in the way the Altyre tradition claims. It is argued that one of them, but not both, was a lineal ancestor of the Altyre Cummings. The two were more distantly related than tradition claims, and the first – Sir Richard Comyn the Crusader (c 1340–1412 × 1415) – founded a different line of Cummings, that of Couttie, Perthshire. The other, Alexander Cumyne, who contracted to marry a sister of the Dunbar earl of Moray in 1408, almost certainly is the Altyre line’s founder, and through him the Gordon Cummings may be descended from the Red Comyns, but in a different way to constructed tradition. In a remarkable series of letters by the antiquarian lawyer John Riddell, a sound account of the Cummings’ origin was put forward in the 1820s, before being overlooked for 200 years. Transcriptions are presented in an appendix to this article.

77 Feasibility and Effectiveness of a Telehealth-Delivered Inductive Reasoning Training Program for Older Adults

Objective:Inductive reasoning training has been found to be particularly effective at improving inductive reasoning, with some evidence of improved everyday functioning and driving. Telehealth may be useful for increasing access to, reducing time and travel burdens of, and reducing the need for physical spaces for cognitive training. On the other hand, telehealth increases technology burden. The present study investigated the feasibility and effectiveness of implementing an inductive reasoning training program, designed to mimic the inductive reasoning arm used in a large multi-site clinical trial (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly (ACTIVE)), via telehealth (using Zoom and Canvas as delivery platforms).Participants and Methods:31 older adult participants (mean age = 71.2, range = 65-85; mean education = 15.5, range = 13-18; 64.5% female; 87.1% white) received 10-sessions of telehealth-delivered inductive reasoning training over 5 weeks. Comparison groups (inductive reasoning trained and no-contact controls) were culled from the in-person ACTIVE trial via propensity matching. All participants completed three pretest and posttest inductive reasoning measures (Word Series, Letter Series, Letter Sets), as well as a posttest measure assessing participant perceptions of the telehealth intervention. In addition, at the end of each of the ten training sessions, participants received a final inductive reasoning assessment.Results:Telehealth participants provided high levels of endorsement suggesting that the telehealth training program was useful, reliable, easy to use and interact on, and employed a useable interface. Participants were generally satisfied with the training program. With regard to performance, telehealth participants demonstrated greater gains than untrained controls on Letter Series [F(1, 116) = 9.81, p = 0.002, partial eta-squared = 0.084] and Letter Sets [F(1, 116) = 8.69, p = 0.004, partial eta-squared = 0.074], but did not differ in improvement on Word Series [F(1, 116) = 1.145, p = 0.287, partial eta-squared = 0.010]. Furthermore, telehealth participants evinced similar inductive reasoning gains as matched inperson inductive reasoning trained participants on Letter Series [F(1, 116) = 1.24, p = 0.226, partial eta-squared = 0.01] and Letter Sets [F(1, 116) = 1.29, p = 0.259, partial eta-squared = 0.01], but demonstrated fewer gains in Word Series performance [F(1, 116) = 25.681, p = < 0.001, partial eta-squared = 0.181]. On the end-of-session reasoning tests, telehealth-trained participants showed a similar general pattern of improvement across the ten training sessions and did not differ significantly from in-person trained comparison participants.Conclusions:Cognitive training via telehealth evinced similar gains across nearly all measures as its in-person counterpart. However, telehealth also led to substantial challenges regarding the telehealth training platform. Despite these challenges, participants reported perceiving increased competence with computer use, peripherals (mice, trackpad), and videoconferencing. These may be ancillary benefits of such training and may be maximized if more age-friendly learning management systems are investigated. Overall, this study suggests that telehealth delivery may be a viable form of cognitive training in inductive reasoning, and future studies could increase performance gains by optimizing the online training platform for older adults.

Arthur Prior’s nom de plume writings in Tomorrow and the Otago Daily Times 1935-1937

Because of the constraints upon him as a philosophy and theology student in a small city (Dunedin) and small society (New Zealand), A.N. Prior wrote a series of letters and articles on religious and political matters for Tomorrow magazine and the Otago Daily Times under three nom de plumes: Richard Bramley, Independent Labour and (including, at least twice with Clare Prior) as John Everdean. This article discusses the content and context of these writings which enable us to gain a deeper and fuller insight into Prior’s religious and political thought at this time of change in his life.