Interrogating the spaces of personal photography : women, identity, and the cultural formation of photographic practice

Personal photographs permeate our lives from the moment we are born as they define who we are within our familial group and local communities. Archived in family albums or framed on living room walls, they continue on after our death as mnemonic artifacts referencing our gendered, raced, and ethnic identities. This dissertation examines salient instances of what women “do” with personal photographs, not only as authors and subjects but also as collectors, archivists, and family and cultural historians. This project seeks to contribute to more productive, complex discourse about how women form relationships and engage with the conventions and practices of personal photography. In the first part of this dissertation I revisit developments in the history of personal photography, including the advertising campaigns of the Kodak and Agfa Girls and the development of albums such as the Stammbuch and its predecessor, the carte-de-visite, that demonstrate how personal photography has functioned as a gendered activity that references family unity, sentimentalism for the past, and self-representation within normative familial and dominant cultural groups, thus suggesting its importance as a cultural practice of identity formation. The second and primary section of the dissertation expands on the critical analyses of Gillian Rose, Patricia Holland, and Nancy Martha West, who propose that personal photography, marketed to and taken on by women, double-exposes their gendered identities. Drawing on work by critics such as Deborah Willis, bell hooks, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau, I examine how the reconfiguration, recontextualization, and relocation of personal photographs in the respective work of Christine Saari, Fern Logan, and Katie Knight interrogates and complicates gendered, raced, and ethnic identities and cultural attitudes about them. In the final section of the dissertation I briefly examine select examples of how emerging digital spaces on the Internet function as a site for personal photography, one that both reinscribes traditional cultural formations while offering new opportunities for women for the display and audiencing of identities outside the family.

Multimembership and Identity in Writing Centers and in Industry: Examining the Work of Reconciliation in the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and at Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Writing center scholarship and practice have approached how issues of identity influence communication but have not fully considered ways of making identity a key feature of writing center research or practice. This dissertation suggests a new way to view identity -- through an experience of "multimembership" or the consideration that each identity is constructed based on the numerous community memberships that make up that identity. Etienne Wenger (1998) proposes that a fully formed identity is ultimately impossible, but it is through the work of reconciling memberships that important individual and community transformations can occur. Since Wenger also argues that reconciliation "is the most significant challenge" for those moving into new communities of practice (or, "engage in a process of collective learning in a shared domain of human endeavor" (4)), yet this challenge often remains tacit, this dissertation examines and makes explicit how this important work is done at two different research sites - a university writing center (the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center) and at a multinational corporation (Kimberly-Clark Corporation). Drawing extensively on qualitative ethnographic methods including interview transcriptions, observations, and case studies, as well as work from scholars in writing center studies (Grimm, Denney, Severino), literacy studies (New London Group, Street, Gee), composition (Horner and Trimbur, Canagarajah, Lu), rhetoric (Crowley), and identity studies (Anzaldua, Pratt), I argue that, based on evidence from the two sites, writing centers need to educate tutors to not only take identity into consideration, but to also make individuals' reconciliation work more visible, as it will continue once students and tutors leave the university. Further, as my research at the Michigan Tech Multiliteracies Center and Kimberly-Clark will show, communities can (and should) change their practices in ways that account for reconciliation work as identity, communication, and learning are inextricably bound up with one another.

Foraminifera from the Colorado Shale of North-Central Montana

The use of foraminifera in the determination of geologic age, and in the correlation of strata, is one of the most important techniques in oil field stratigraphic studies. The petroleum industry in many regions relies on these microscopic life forms to determine the positions of oil-bearing horizons and to determine the tops of beds. In northern Montana the Colorado group of strata, a series of about 2,000 feet of dense, dark similar shales, is known to contain foraminifers.

The Function of Norms and Values in the Construction of Social Identity in Groups who experienced intergroup Conflicts

I present my explorative research about conflict and social identity. The Social Identity Approach of Henri Tajfel and John Turner is used as theoretical frame in the study. The main question is how the construction of social identity of group members is influenced by an inter-group conflict. The research project consists of two parts: 1. An empirical study conducted with qualitative research methods to investigate a today’s congregation of the Swiss reformed Church who experienced a conflict about twenty years ago. This conflict ended by the separation of a sub-group from the congregations. This group forms an independent community today. Members of both congregations where interviewed about the meaning which membership has for them and about their interpretation of the conflict. 2. An analysis of the Gospel of Matthew with questions who where developed out of the empirical study and the Social Identity Approach to better understand the separation conflict between the Matthean community and the synagogue.

On the Identity of Spencebatea Abyssicola (Cumacea), with Additional Observations on the Genera Allied to Procampylaspis

In 1879 Norman described Spencebatea abyssicola, new genus, new species, on the basis of a single specimen from a deep-sea site off Ireland. The species was transferred to the genus Cumella by Stebbing in 1913, where it has remained. A reexamination of the specimen indicated that it belongs to the genus Procampylaspis since it possesses the recurved, tooth-bearing dactyl on maxilliped 2 which characterizes the genus. Seven other genera also exhibit modified dactyls on maxilliped 2, and, in addition, have styliform mandible molars, thus forming a coherent group within the family Nannastacidae.

Relation of vocational identity statuses to interest structure among Swiss adolescents

Vocational identity is one core component of identity construction in adolescence. The current study investigated whether vocational interest structure in terms of differentiation, coherence, elevation, and interest-aspiration congruence would differentiate among students in vocational identity achievement, foreclosure, moratorium, and diffusion. Swiss students at the beginning of eighth grade (N = 341) participated in the study. Groups were created using cluster analysis based on the dimensions of career exploration and career commitment, and group differences were explored with discriminant analysis. Controlling for sociodemographic variables, higher interest differentiation and elevation distinguished students in achievement/moratorium from those in diffusion. More interest elevation differentiated moratorium from foreclosure. (Contains 1 figure and 3 tables.)

Discursive Practices Of Organizational Identity Negotiations

How do organizations discursively negotiate organizational identity? In a longitudinal interpretive case study, we investigate the discursive practices of identity negotiations in a non-profit organization. Drawing on semi-structured interviews, documents and participant observations, and in applying a discourse analytical framework, we first identify three distinct discourses that provide the discursive resources for three different identity propositions. Then and in order to understand how these discursive resources are activated and utilized, we reconstruct four distinct discursive practices of organizational identity negotiations: (1) external comparison and differentiation (2) denial of trade-offs and harmonization (3) historization, and (4) moralization. We discuss how this structure relates to other similarly pluralistic organizational contexts.

Health care policy analysis of Medicaid's early and periodic screening, diagnosis, and treatment (EPSDT) benefit in Colorado

The purpose of this thesis is to identify "best practice" recommendations for successful implementation of the EPSDT outreach program at Memorial Health System's Hospital for Children in Colorado Springs through a policy analysis of Medicaid EPSDT services in Colorado. A successful program at Memorial will increase education and awareness of EPSDT services, enrollment, and access to and utilization of health care services for eligible children. Methodology utilized in this study included questionnaires designed for the EPSDT contract administrator and outreach coordinators/workers; analysis of current federal and state policies; and studies conducted at the federal and state level, and by various advocacy groups. The need for this analysis of EPSDT came about in part through an awareness of increasingly high numbers of children in poverty and who are uninsured. Though the percentage of children living in poverty in Colorado is slightly below the national average (see Table 2), according to data analyzed by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, the percentage of children (0-18) living in poverty in Colorado increased from 10% in 2000 to 16% in 2006, a dramatic increase of 60% surpassed by only one other state in the nation (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2008). By comparison, the U.S. percentage of children in poverty during the same time frame rose from 17% to 18% (The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2008). What kind of health care services are available to this vulnerable and growing group of Coloradans, and what are the barriers that affect their enrollment in, access to and utilization of these health care services? Barriers identified included difficulty with the application process; system and process issues; a lack of providers; and a lack of awareness and knowledge of EPSDT. Fiscal restraints and legislation at the federal and state level are also barriers to increasing enrollment and access to services. Outreach services are a critical component of providing EPSDT services, and there were several recommendations regarding outreach and case management that will benefit the program in the future. Through this analysis and identification of a broad range of barriers, a clearer picture emerged of current challenges within the EPSDT program as well as a broad range of strategies and recommendations to address these challenges. Through increased education and advocacy for EPSDT and the services it encompasses; stronger collaboration and cooperation between all groups involved, including providing a Medical Home for all eligible children; and new legislation putting more money and focus on comprehensive health care for low-income uninsured children; enrollment, access to and utilization of developmentally appropriate and quality health care services can be achieved. ^

Holomorphic Automorphisms of Danielewski Surfaces II: Structure of the Overshear Group

We apply Nevanlinna theory for algebraic varieties to Danielewski surfaces and investigate their group of holomorphic automorphisms. Our main result states that the overshear group, which is known to be dense in the identity component of the holomorphic automorphism group, is a free product.

Synthesis of arbitrary group delay responses with all-pass optical cavities structures

We propose a systematic method for the synthesis of arbitrary group delay responses by using allpass structures of coupled optical cavities. Optimum structure parameters design, in terms of filter order and accuracy, are obtained.

Influence of the semantic content of urban sounds in the identity of outer spaces

This paper shows the influence of the semantic content of urban sounds in the subjective evaluation of outer spaces. The study is based on the analysis conducted in three neighboring and integrated urban spaces with a different form of social ownership in the city of Cordoba, Argentina. It shows that the type of sound source present at each site influence, by its semantic content, in the user´s identification and permanence in the place. The noise present in a soundscape is able to have a high semantic content, and therefore the sound has a particular meaning for the perceiver. Every particular social group influences the production of their own sounds and how they perceive them. This allows to consider the sound as one of the factors that define the sense of "place" or "no place" of a certain urban space. Evidently the sounds, and their ability to evoke and characterize the environment, cannot be ignored in the construction and recovery of anthropological sites. This urban culture is unique and specific to every society. Thepublic spaces, with their soundscape, are part of the construction of the urban identity of a city. It is shown that for identical general sound levels present in each of the spaces, the level of annoyance or discomfort, in relation to the subjective acoustic quality, is different. This is the result of the influence of semantic content of the sounds present in each urban space. Coinciding with other similar research, the level of discomfort or annoyance decreases as the presence of natural sounds such as water, the wind in the trees or the birds singing increases, even when the objective values of noise level of natural sounds are higher.

Mammalian Trithorax and Polycomb-group homologues are antagonistic regulators of homeotic development

Control of cell identity during development is specified in large part by the unique expression patterns of multiple homeobox-containing (Hox) genes in specific segments of an embryo. Trithorax and Polycomb-group (Trx-G and Pc-G) proteins in Drosophila maintain Hox expression or repression, respectively. Mixed lineage leukemia (MLL) is frequently involved in chromosomal translocations associated with acute leukemia and is the one established mammalian homologue of Trx. Bmi-1 was first identified as a collaborator in c-myc-induced murine lymphomagenesis and is homologous to the Drosophila Pc-G member Posterior sex combs. Here, we note the axial-skeletal transformations and altered Hox expression patterns of Mll-deficient and Bmi-1-deficient mice were normalized when both Mll and Bmi-1 were deleted, demonstrating their antagonistic role in determining segmental identity. Embryonic fibroblasts from Mll-deficient compared with Bmi-1-deficient mice demonstrate reciprocal regulation of Hox genes as well as an integrated Hoxc8-lacZ reporter construct. Reexpression of MLL was able to overcome repression, rescuing expression of Hoxc8-lacZ in Mll-deficient cells. Consistent with this, MLL and BMI-I display discrete subnuclear colocalization. Although Drosophila Pc-G and Trx-G members have been shown to maintain a previously established transcriptional pattern, we demonstrate that MLL can also dynamically regulate a target Hox gene.

Biosynthesis of vitamin B12: Concerning the identity of the two-carbon fragment eliminated during anaerobic formation of cobyrinic acid

It has been proved that, during anaerobic biosynthesis of the corrin macrocycle, the two-carbon fragment excised from the precursor, precorrin-3, is acetaldehyde, which originates from C-20 and its attached methyl group. This apparently contradictory finding is rationalized in terms of the subsequent enzymatic oxidation of acetaldehyde to acetic acid, which was previously regarded as the volatile fragment released by the action of the biosynthetic enzymes of Propionibacterium shermanii. The observation that acetaldehyde (rather than acetic acid) is extruded during anaerobic B12 synthesis is in full accord with the structure of factor IV, a new intermediate on the pathway.