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Taylor Swift is a worldwide phenomenon, especially in 2023. She follows in the footsteps of the female pop and rock musicians from the 1980s and 1990s who were lighting up the world with their music. Madonna, Gwen Stefani, the Riot Grrrls, and many more set the foundation for the feminist topics discussed in Swift’s music. They all perform songs of female empowerment and struggles by being sexually provocative and aggressively anti-sexist in their lyrics and performances. These lyrics and performances reflected Second Wave Feminism ideas. Swift takes these same feminist themes and inserts them into her lyrics and performances, but instead of being sexually provocative, she maintains a nice, girl-next-door persona. She also exists in a time vastly different than the female musicians from the 1980s and 1990s. Since the early 2000s, Americans have increasingly used social media in their daily lives, experienced the #metoo movement where women openly shared stories of their sexual assault experiences, and endured a long quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All these experiences are isolating and connect to a loneliness epidemic. People need connection, which is where Swift and her music come into play. By having a nice girl persona, discussing feminist themes that girls and women can relate to, and while living in a time of isolation, she creates a sense of connection amongst her audience in a time when society needs connection more than ever. Provoking this connection amongst girls and women reflects Postfeminism. Additionally, more connection is further needed. After all, Swift is a cis-gender, straight, white, wealthy female, and thus, there is a limit to how much people can connect to her. Nonetheless, there are female pop and rock musicians in the U.S. who are already following in her footsteps and come from more diverse backgrounds. These artists reflect Third Wave Feminism. Some examples include Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, and Camila Cabello. As time goes

In his article “Translation as Creative Writing: Rewriting The Chinese Maze Murders in Contemporary China,” Xiaoquan Raphael Zhang examines four groups of selected writings centered on one of Robert van Gulik’s more well-known Judge Dee novels, The Chinese Maze Murders (written first in English but not published until 1956). Different from most publications on van Gulik and his novels, Zhang examines the impact of censorship and self-censorship on the writing, rewriting, and (re)adapting, “literal” and “liberal/free” translation of the Judge Dee stories traveling between Chinese and English, between China and the West, for Chinese and non-Chinese audiences. Focus is given to contextualizing the two Chinese versions and in particular Chen’s rendition. Zhang argues that the Chinese translator’s (self-)censorship plays a role in generating more creativity and agency, sometimes coerced, in literary translation across different cultures and languages and renders literary translation more a creative mission than merely retelling stories in a different language. Viewed in this light, translators are more like creative writers. What deserves more scholarly investigation is their agency and strategies in (re)creating the texts for their target audience in the target language.

In her article "The Malvinas/Falklands War in Transatlantic Narratives: Exploring Collective Memory and Negotiating Self/Other Identity", Andrea R. Bellot examines the remembrance of the Malvinas/Falklands War (1982) through cultural texts for children, presenting a comparative analysis of post-war narratives from both the United Kingdom and Argentina. Through a detailed exploration of "The Tin-Pot Foreign General and the Old Iron Woman" by British author and illustrator Raymond Briggs (1984), and the Argentine TV cartoon show "La Asombrosa Excursión de Zamba en las Islas Malvinas" (2012), broadcasted on Paka Paka, Bellot discusses how collective memory and national identity are crafted and contested in these representations. While both works aim to critique the absurdity of war, they diverge in their political undertones, engaging with themes of patriotism, collective memory, and political satire. Bellot's analysis employs a comparative literature framework to illuminate the role these narratives play in shaping remembrance and contributing to the ongoing construction of national identities and collective memories in the post-war era. Her findings underscore the significant influence of children's cultural texts in negotiating memory and identity, enriching our understanding of the complex dynamics between narrative, memory, and identity in the context of conflict.

In her article “All Men Are Brothers: Pearl S. Buck’s Translation of Shui Hu Zhuan and its Effects on Her Writing Career,” Zhihui Sophia Geng focuses on Pulitzer Prize winner and Noble Laureate Pearl Sydenstricker Buck’s All Men Are Brothers, her translation of the classical Chinese novel Shui Hu Zhuan. She examines the reception of her translation and analyzes the significance of All Men Are Brothers to Buck’s literary career. By providing the first complete translation of Shui Hu Zhuan to an English-speaking audience, Buck made a significant cultural contribution to the United States and English-speaking cultural spheres. The panoramic Shui Hu Zhuan showcases a drastically different way of writing from a long and dynamic Chinese literary tradition. Immersion in Shui Hu Zhuan nurtured Buck’s sympathy towards the common people and is instrumental in her choice to focus on the Chinese peasantry as the subject matter of her writing. This keen insight is indispensable to her creation of ground-breaking works such as The Good Earth. In addition, Buck’s reading of classical Chinese fiction had a considerable effect on her prose style. Buck proudly declared that the Chinese novel “has an illumination for the Western novel and for the Western novelist,” and her success as a novelist, in turn, affirms the worthiness of this tradition.

In her article “Exotic Construction of an Ancient Oriental Sappho: On Rexroth’s Creative Translation of Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-Poems and its Influences,” Yuqun Fu discusses Li Ch’ing-Chao’s Ci-poems and her identity as a woman intellect in the patriarchal and feudal Song Dynasty of China. Due to Kenneth Rexroth’s feminist perspective and Sappho complex as well as his own pursuit to excel in the hipster stylistics of the newly prospering Beat writers, Rexroth turns to the Eastern women poets to fuel his own cause, especially in his idiosyncratic way of interpreting and translating Li Ch’ing-Chao. His translation focuses on gender identity and displays the manipulation of a mainstream culture to a nonmainstream culture. He misinterprets some frequent images and narrations in Li’s poems by singling out some love poems and supplementing some sexual implications and hence shapes the peculiar imagery of a heterogeneous ancient Chinese woman figure with the bold and unveiled expression of her own bodily desires and feminist emancipation with the mysterious veil of ancient Oriental mysticism. His translation of Li has profound influences on his own poetry in terms of themes and writing techniques. In addition, his version of Li has influenced some of his peers and subsequent translators, some Beat writers, and contemporary writers in the U.S.

In her article "Engaging China: Beckett’s Debt to Pound, Giles, and Laloy," Lidan Lin examines Ezra Pound’s influence on Samuel Beckett. In their dealings with China, Pound and Beckett are both indebted to such sinologists and cultural transmitters as Ernest Fenollosa, H. A. Giles, Louis Laloy, and Laurence Binyon who introduced Chinese culture, literature, and arts to the Western world through translation and their writings about China. Lin situates the Pound-Beckett connection in the broad cultural context of the early 20th century. She argues that while modernism’s turn to China as a cultural paradigm was collectively brought about by writers, museum curators, and publishers, Beckett’s appropriation of China was part of this paradigm. In mapping this paradigm, she traces it to the 18th- and 19th-century phenomena of Chinoiserie and suggest their cultural and aesthetic continuity.

The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between degree of social networking site (SNS) use and optimism/pessimism means scores from the optimism/pessimism instrument (OPI) for SNS users who are age 18+ and live in the United States. The purpose of the study was also to determine how the main type of platform used, main type of content viewed, and number of connections mediated and/or moderated this relationship. The research problem was that SNSs are becoming a prominent form of media and little research has examined how the degree of exposure to SNSs cultivate psychological states, especially in relation to the mediating or moderating effects of platform, content, and number of connections. A correlational, quantitative research design was used with a cross-sectional, analytical survey to gather data on user demographics, SNS use data, and OPI mean scores. A total of 6 research questions were asked including 16 hypotheses that were tested. Inferential statistics were used to test the assumptions of regression, and multiple linear regression, ANOVA, stepwise linear regression, SPSS Process, and SmartPLS4 were used to determine the relationships between variables and mediating/moderating effects therein. Results demonstrated that there is a significant positive linear relationship between degree of SNS use and optimism/pessimism means scores, wherein optimism is negatively partially mediated by content and positively partially mediated by number of connections, and pessimism is positively partially mediated by content. Future studies should further examine the mediating effects of specific types of content on user attitudes. The implications of the study showed a potential need for regulating certain types of content to counteract the negative mediating effect content has on optimism and positive mediating effect content has on pessimism based on average hours per day used.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to describe the cinematic semiosis of God, to understand how God is signified through the film medium, and to explore possible effects of this signification on the American Christian mythos. This qualitative study was conducted as an artifactual analysis study. The selected artifacts were three films and two works of literature. The film artifacts were Shadowlands, Bad Times at the El Royale, and The Tree of Life. The literature artifacts were A Grief Observed by C. S. Lewis and The Book of Job. The practice of close reading was given to each artifact for data collection. Each artifact likewise underwent two stages of analysis: semiotic, based on the logics of C. S. Peirce, and the tetradic laws of media, based on the media ecology of Marshall McLuhan. The analysis found that semiotics is a viable research philosophy for cinematic signification and that McLuhan’s tetrad works in tandem with semiotics to explore the effects of signifying God through the medium. Also, the findings suggest that the potency of a sign is found in the semiosis, or semiotic process, of a sign and not in the classification of the sign. The implications of this study offer alternative perspectives on the purposes and practice of Christian cinema as well as the usability of media ecology theory in cinema studies.

Fake news is an old phenomenon that has become a new obsession and a menace to society due to technological advancement and the proliferation of social media, which has changed traditional journalism norms. As the spread of false information has increased these past few years, it has become increasingly difficult for information consumers to distinguish between facts and fakes. A comprehensive systematic literature review to extract themes revealed the major factors responsible for spreading fake news. This qualitative interpretative meta-synthesis (QIMS) aims to better understand and offer solutions to combat fake news. This Ph.D. dissertation will serve as a guide for ethical communication practice and a reference for future research studies.

FIM111 Screen Studies and Practice project 2 part 2 (group) examplar - expository documentary.

FLM171.1 Introduction to Cinematography and Location Sound project 1.

This paper goes beyond celebrating podcast growth in Brazil, analyzing 511 Brazilian podcast producers (2015-2020). Using a semi-structured form, the survey focuses on outlining the profile of female producers. Drawing from gender, cultural, and political science literature, it explores how producer presence aligns with intersectional practices in Brazilian feminisms. Results indicate that women podcast producers in Brazil mostly have a college degree, variable income and identify as feminist, contributing to a unified community that engages with and challenges the political and human rights agenda, expanding discourse through communication access.

If a country’s podcast scene could be described as a vibe, Pakistan’s would be “dude bro”; that is, politically and culturally right-leaning masculinist narrative. The format is simple: like The Joe Rogan Experience which has over 15 million subscribers and over three billion views in Pakistan, there’s a host and a guest. In addition to Rogan, other popular pods are The Pakistan Experience, Pakistonomy, Thought Behind Things, Talks that Matter, Mooroo, The Pivot, Junaid Akram’s Podcast. The conversations usually revolve around the guest’s life, their political views, the economy – whether Pakistan will default or not, will the IMF give another tranche for relief, will donor money bring in dollars and other burning subjects. There’s also How Does This Work, Misaal (a tech/start-up podcast), Policy Beats, Climate Mahaul (Pakistan’s first podcast on Climate Change), Dragon Road (exploring Pakistan’s relationship with China) and Mosiki which looks at music, freelancing, and other “fun” things. All this changed in December 2020 when the first episode of mine and Saba Imtiaz’s Notes on a Scandal – Pakistan’s first true-crime podcast – made its debut.

Radiophilia, the new book in The Study of Sound Series, discusses radio in the context of recent literature about affects and emotions. Informed by various traditions within media and cultural studies, and guided by the work of Lauren Berlant and Arjun Appudarai, it approaches ‘radiophilia’ -love for, or strong attachment to, radio—as a wide-reaching concept that includes groups practices and social moods and that can be practised in public spaces and communities, beyond interior and domestic set-ups.

At that moment, I think Leslie was not only really happy, but even proud. It is Tuesday evening, 18 May 2021, and we are sitting together on a table in front of the stage in a studio at the German broadcaster, WDR. Not in front of the table, not next to the table, but on the table. Our legs are dangling and we let them dangle. Because we are really exhausted. The whole team is. We have just finished the last live event on stage and we’ve actually made it. Four days of the International Feature Conference in Cologne. Sven Preger remembers colleague, friend, and award-winning documentary maker, Leslie Rosin.

This article offers a review of Mihaela Mihai’s book Political Memory and the Aesthetics of Care: The Art of Complicity and Resistance (2022). In it, Mihai courageously brings together insights from critical theory, political and legal science, philosophy, literary studies, and feminist theory to argue for the need of rearticulating how we remember complicity and resistance in the aftermath of political violence. Mihai develops her argument in three steps. First, she provides an account of how complicity and resistance are misremembered after systemic violence. Second, she tracks the political, epistemic and ethical consequences that this faulty work of memory-making holds for the present and future. And third, she proposes a strategy for challenging reductive narratives of the past and fostering more nuanced models of remembrance. The review analyses each of these steps with the aim of sketching out Mihai’s contribution to the burgeoning scholarship on complicity and implication in violence.

Cold Mountain Poems (CMPs), which have been neglected in the history of Chinese literature for ages, captured the attention of most Americans immediately after its being translated into America by the American poet Gary Snyder in 1950s, however. It is Snyder that reconfigured and recreated a sagacious Chinese Chan Buddhist poet Han-shan (literally, Cold Mountain), the acknowledged author of Cold Mountain Poems, in his translation for the postwar Americans in the midst of varied social problems and cultural identity crisis after World War II. Snyder eventually found in his translation of Cold Mountain Poems a back-to-nature remedy of spiritual salvation and literary enlightenment for the beat generation and even the entire American literary community at large then and after, by means of his delicate transcreation of Han-shan images in line with American expectations at the time as well as by means of his skillful tradaptation of the realistic elements of self-expression, self-identification and self-actualization in Cold Mountain Poems and also by means of his profound exploration of the Chan Buddhism aesthetics and philosophical mediation in classical Chinese landscape poems and Chinese hermit culture

Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul’s (1932-2018) first Islamic travelogue Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey (1981) contains his experience of a visit from August 1979 to February 1980 to the four non-Arab Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Similarly, his last Islamic travelogue Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions among the Converted Peoples (1998) has a description of another visit to the same countries for five-month in 1995. Concurrently, Daniel Pipes (1949-), an American historian, published his doctoral dissertation, Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System (1981), which represents Islamic culture as the first instigator of military slavery in the world. Then, he wrote an analysis of modern Islamic history In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power (1983), which historicizes Islam as a politically failed force all over the world. These travelogues and history are generically different. But a common topological relationality can be mapped in the anecdotes of Naipaul’s travelogues and the historiography of Pipes’ history, as they use identical tropological configurations to historicize Islamic cultures. This similar tropological historiography, this article argues, is covertly an offshoot of the contemporary spatiotemporal context in which they were produced. The context was networked by certain ideological implications, ethnocentrism, and some cultural misapprehensions regarding Islamic/Muslim culture, making the historicism of both Naipaul and Pipes seem ahistorical.

Exploring the development of algorithms in Lacanian theory, specifically the "R schema" in the 1950s, I argue that psychoanalysis, read through contemporary debates about the "algorithmic cult" of Netflix and other avatars of popular culture, can be said to reveal the inhuman, machinic essence of subjectivity. The etiology of algorithms, mathemes, and other formulae and diagrams in Lacan’s oeuvre has been under-studied, in part because for some readers they are not as attractive as his more bravura flourishes of word play as exegetical excess, and in part because they derive largely from the ‘hard’ structuralist moment of his work in the 1950s, largely eclipsed in Lacan studies by interests in the ‘Late Lacan’ period of the Sinthome, the knots, jouissance and the semblant. Here I extend (and refine) arguments I began in Does the Internet Have An Unconscious, determining that algorithms in Lacanian theory help us understand the split subjectivity of internet discourse.