Communication Studies

The line that demarcates art and science is a tenuous one. Recent exhibitions by artists such as Gunther von Hagens and Lucinda Devlin attempt to challenge this traditional demarcation by suggesting that thanatos, the death instinct, lingers at the core of both projects. The first half of the analysis assesses the damage that these exhibitions render to modern rationality by reducing human beings to the traces they leave in a world where mechanics define the boundary between life and death. Once these imprints puncture the membrane between art and science, the constituent parts that form the basis for epistemic representation come into stark relief against the aesthetic background. The second part of the analysis disassembles these discursive components into a collage of images that, rather than expressing unity or equilibrium, create a counter-narrative of conflict and transgression that resurrects the specter of thanatos rather than represses it. Here art and science clash in a re...

This essay uses Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve to examine the sedimented history of probability in America. By creating a moral cartography for the nation, the model reinforces ethnic hierarchy and difference. Three socio-graphic dynamics define this spatial rhetoric. The first creates an idealized middle to valorize sameness and normalcy, creating a universal standard of judgement. The second uses variable formation and standard deviation to manufacture the basis for difference and ranking. The third relies upon a temporal subjectivity to reinforce ethnic competition through specific progressive trajectories. The essay concludes with suggestions for a counter discourse that resists the probabilistic mandate.

This essay uses Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve to examine the sedimented history of probability in America. By creating a moral cartography for the nation, the model reinforces ethnic hierarchy and difference. Three socio-graphic dynamics define this spatial rhetoric. The first creates an idealized middle to valorize sameness and normalcy, creating a universal standard of judgement. The second uses variable formation and standard deviation to manufacture the basis for difference and ranking. The third relies upon a temporal subjectivity to reinforce ethnic competition through specific progressive trajectories. The essay concludes with suggestions for a counter discourse that resists the probabilistic mandate.

The Southern Agrarian movement began with a consortium of writers and intellectuals who argued for Southern sovereignty during the 1930s. Fearing the forces of industrial capitalism, the Southern Agrarians argued that the technocractic mass culture of the Northeast would exterminate Southern identity. The following analysis demonstrates that even though their attempts to establish Southern sovereignty were unsuccessful, these writers reconfigured agrarian space as a sphere of political resistance against growing technologic materialism. This analysis culminates in an exploration of the way that this vision blended heterotopian space and sacred reawakening, creating a new agrarian rhetoric that would influence later generations. In 1977, agrarian activist Wendell Berry published his seminal work, The Unsettling of America, wherein he resurrected localized agriculture as a unique site of both active political resistance and spiritual enlightenment. He asserted that repressive political forces within the United States were driven by a consumer economy and an obsession with mechanization that required political resistance rooted in lifestyle modification. 1 While this work is sometimes identified as the genesis for modern sustainability movements and organic farming campaigns, a deeper look into the turbulent decades of the 1930s reveals that the corrective agrarian lifestyle has much deeper roots in American rhetorical culture. Ross Singer suggests, ''American agrarianism is a philosophical tradition and malleable discursive frame adopting, defending, revising, and reproducing mythic assumptions about the morality of farming.'' 2

The line that demarcates art and science is a tenuous one. Recent exhibitions by artists such as Gunther von Hagens and Lucinda Devlin attempt to challenge this traditional demarcation by suggesting that thanatos, the death instinct, lingers at the core of both projects. The first half of the analysis assesses the damage that these exhibitions render to modern rationality by reducing human beings to the traces they leave in a world where mechanics define the boundary between life and death. Once these imprints puncture the membrane between art and science, the constituent parts that form the basis for epistemic representation come into stark relief against the aesthetic background. The second part of the analysis disassembles these discursive components into a collage of images that, rather than expressing unity or equilibrium, create a counter-narrative of conflict and transgression that resurrects the specter of thanatos rather than represses it. Here art and science clash in a realm of semblance where the body no longer establishes authenticity, but becomes the primary symptom of epistemic failure.

Attitudes toward credit, money beliefs and behavior, and imagined conversations with parents about credit and debt were found to differ between students with credit cards and those without. Credit attitudes, the money attitudes of independence, power, and inadequacy, ...

This study investigated the effects of sense of humor, defensiveness, and gender on the interpretation of ambiguous messages directed toward the self. In two studies, respondents completed questionnaires featuring written scenarios to test for perceptions of messages as humorous or critical. Sense of humor was related to the humorous interpretations of the messages, whereas defensiveness did. not have a significant effect on the defensive interpretations. In Study 1, females interpreted messages regarding mental and physical errors in a more humorous manner, and males interpreted them more defensively. In Study 2, females and males interpreted messages regarding appearance similarly, but females interpreted a message regarding weight more defensively.

A scale measuring individual levels of sensitivity to feedback was developed. Factor analysis revealed four factors -Sensitivity to Attention, to Socially Desirable Feedback, to Socially Undesirable Feedback, and Anticipation of Response. Sensitivity to feedback is positively correlated with self-monitoring, self-esteem, and interaction involvement; negatively correlated with communication apprehension.

This research examined interpretations of messages as a function of whether they are equivocal or unequivocal, whether they protect self-face or other-face, and whether the perceivers of the messages are directly involved in the conversation or overhear it. The role of self-monitoring and gender were also assessed. Results of Study 1 (N=463) revealed that equivocation is perceived as more polite but less honest and less competent than unequivocal criticism. Equivocation addressing other-face is the most polite, and criticism of the other is the least polite. Females perceive equivocation as more polite than do males. Ego-involvement influences perceptions independently and through its interaction with equivocation. No support was found for the role of self-monitoring or the notion that equivocation conveys a more positive meaning than unequivocal criticism. Study 2 (N = 496) replicated the findings concerning the politeness, honesty, self-other differences, gender differences, self-monitoring, and meaning associated with equivocation.