The Edge of Danger: artificial lighting and the dialectics of domestic occupation in Philip Johnson's Glass and Guest Houses

In the first half of the twentieth century the dematerializing of boundaries between enclosure and exposure problematized traditional acts of “occupation” and understandings of the domestic environment. As a space of escalating technological control, the modern domestic interior offered new potential to re-define the meaning and means of habitation. This shift is clearly expressed in the transformation of electric lighting technology and applications for the modern interior in the mid-twentieth century. Addressing these issues, this paper examines the critical role of electric lighting in regulating and framing both the public and private occupation of Philip Johnson’s New Canaan estate. Exploring the dialectically paired transparent Glass House and opaque Guest House (both 1949), this study illustrates how Johnson employed artificial light to control the visual environment of the estate as well as to aestheticize the performance of domestic space. Looking closely at the use of artificial light to create emotive effects as well as to intensify the experience of occupation, this revisiting of the iconic Glass House and lesser-known Guest House provides a more complex understanding of Johnson’s work and the means with which he inhabited his own architecture. Calling attention to the importance of Johnson serving as both architect and client, and his particular interest in exploring the new potential of architectural lighting in this period, this paper investigates Johnson’s use of electric light to support architectural narratives, maintain visual order and control, and to suit the nuanced desires of domestic occupation.

Eclectic Dialectics: William Klein's Documentary Method

This article examines the relations between documentary aesthetics and the political sensibility of William Klein. Structured around the cultural phenomena that have remained integral to his career as a photographer and filmmaker - fashion, sport, and music - it discusses his enduring attachment to notions of freedom and creativity still associated with 1960s counter-culture, and the Vietnam War. In particular, it examines how how his films disrupt conventional categories, and subvert the familiar rhetoric of mainstream documentary film, especially that associated with cinéma vérité. A erstwhile protege of Dada, Klein has always valued the expressive potential of improbable juxtapositions, of intercutting between times and places, and subverting mainstream journalistic modes and intentions. The article argues that this attitude is increasingly rare among contemporary documentary filmmakers, and yet it is the very thing that gives his work a distinctive aesthetic texture, and relevance to any history of cinema.

Second Wave Positive Psychology: Exploring the Positive–Negative Dialectics of Wellbeing

Positive psychology has tended to be defined in terms of a concern with ‘positive’ psychological qualities and states. However, critics of the field have highlighted various problems inherent in classifying phenomena as either ‘positive’ or ‘negative.’ For instance, ostensibly positive qualities (e.g., optimism) can sometimes be detrimental to wellbeing, whereas apparently negative processes (like anxiety) may at times be conducive to it. As such, over recent years, a more nuanced ‘second wave’ of positive psychology has been germinating, which explores the philosophical and conceptual complexities of the very idea of the ‘positive.’ The current paper introduces this emergent second wave by examining the ways in which the field is developing a more subtle understanding of the ‘dialectical’ nature of flourishing (i.e., involving a complex and dynamic interplay of positive and negative experiences). The paper does so by problematizing the notions of positive and negative through seven case studies, including five salient dichotomies (such as optimism versus pessimism) and two complex processes (posttraumatic growth and love). These case studies serve to highlight the type of critical, dialectical thinking that characterises this second wave, thereby outlining the contours of the evolving field.

Dialectics of Diaspora Space: a Study of Contemporary, Diasporic, South Asian Fiction

In light of these continuing debates concerning immigration, national identity and belonging, re-examinations of immigrant and ethnic communities, often referred to as ‘diaspora,’ have become increasingly popular and prudent. Khachig Tololian, editor of Diaspora magazine, calls diaspora “exemplary communities of the transnational moment.”5 In an increasingly globalized world, where labor, capital, and resources are passed fluidly from continent to continent, diaspora are created by relocation or displacement of immigrant workers and their descendents.6 For these unskilled, immigrant laborers, middle class immigrants, and the children of both groups, adaptation to the culture, society, and life in a new ‘host’ country can be difficult, to say the least. So, in response to a new cultural landscape and a tenuous sense belonging, as well as to maintain a connection with a shared past, citizens of the world’s numerous diaspora replicate linguistic, cultural, and social norms, creating their own “cultural space[s]” that mirror and often replace a past relationship to their land of origin, or ‘home’.

Work and Inter-subjectivity: a theoretical reflection on its dialectics in the field of health and nursing

This theoretical reflection intends to show the inter-subjective relationship that takes place in health and nursing practices under the following theoretical perspectives: Institutional Analysis, Psychodynamics of Labor and the Theory of Communicative Action, with an emphasis on the latter. Linking these concepts to the Marxist approach to work in the field of health emerges from recognizing the need for its continuous reconstruction-in this case, with a view to understand the interaction and communication intrinsic to work in action. The theory of Communicative Action seeks to consider these two inextricable dimensions: work as productive action and as interaction. The first corresponds to instrumental action based on technical rules with a production-guided rationale. The second refers to the interaction that takes place as communicative action and seeks understanding among subjects. We assume that adopting this theoretical perspective in the analysis of health and nursing practices opens new possibilities for clarifying its social and historical process and inter-subjective connections.

Mobile Temporalities: Place, Ruination and the Dialectics of Time

In this chapter I explore the ambiguous, contradictory and often transient ways the past enters into our lives. I shed light on the interplay of mobility and temporality in the lifeworlds of two Somalis who left Mogadishu with the outbreak of the war in the 1990s. Looking into the ways they actively make sense of this crucial ‘memory-place’ (Ricoeur 2004), a place that that has been turned into a landscape of ruins and rubble, alternative understandings of memory and temporality will emerge. Instead of producing a continuum between here and there, and now and then, the stories and photographs discussed in this chapter form dialectical images – images that refuse to be woven into a coherent picture of the past. By emphasising the dialectical ways these two individuals make sense of Mogadishu’s past and presence, I am following Walter Benjamin’s cue to rethink deeply modern analytical categories such as history, memory and temporality by highlighting the brief, fragmented moments of their appearance in everyday life.

The dialectics of corporate reporting:a semiotic analysis of corporate financial and environmental reporting

The central argument to this thesis is that the nature and purpose of corporate reporting has changed over time to become a more outward looking and forward looking document designed to promote the company and its performance to a wide range of shareholders, rather than merely to report to its owners upon past performance. it is argued that the discourse of environmental accounting and reporting is one driver for this change but that this discourse has been set up as in conflicting with the discourse of traditional accounting and performance measurement. The effect of this opposition between the discourses is that the two have been interpreted to be different and incompatible dimensions of performance with good performance along one dimension only being achievable through a sacrifice of performance along the other dimension. Thus a perceived dialectic in performance is believed to exist. One of the principal purposes of this thesis is to explore this perceived dialectic and, through analysis, to show that it does not exist and that there is not incompatibility. This exploration and analysis is based upon an investigation of the inherent inconsistencies in such corporate reports and the analysis makes use of both a statistical analysis and a semiotic analysis of corporate reports and the reported performance of companies along these dimensions. Thus the development of a semiology of corporate reporting is one of the significant outcomes of this thesis. A further outcome is a consideration of the implications of the analysis for corporate performance and its measurement. The thesis concludes with a consideration of the way in which the advent of electronic reporting may affect the ability of organisations to maintain the dialectic and the implications for corporate reporting.

The Dialectics of Modernity - Recognizing Globalization. Studies on the Theoretical Perspectives of Globalization

The volume The Dialectics of Modernity - Recognizing Globalization. Studies on the Theoretical Perspectives of Globalization is the product of a work of that quarter of the century, which has been continuing, since 1989 up today, the true beginning of the globalization. Therefore, because that concept was not existing at that time, the work is not yet directed, in the first years, on the globalization itself. As it can be seen, this concept pushed through only in the second half of the nineties, when the concept could also be already statistically revealed in the world press. How a group of researchers from Hungary was enquirying during the nineties, according to partners of conversation at home and abroad, with whom one could talk about how the new world emerging with 1989 can actually be described, is a long story, the theory of which consists in the fact, that we apparently live in a world, where the most part of the people, even worse, even most of the intellectuals are hardly interested in how this one really looks like. On looking for partners, the circle of the authors of this volume was created. In Hungary, we quickly reached our limit (which much later did not prevent us from appearing, such as if we had always been living in the theoretically worked globalization). The French group around Jacques Poulain reacted the fastest way (and later around Francois de Bernard, with his particularly valuable homepage www.mondialisations.org), not much later the contact with the Russian colleagues around Alexandr Shumakov was created, in which Encyclopedia of the Globalization our contribution could already appear in 2003. On these traces, we came to the productive relationship with Leonid Grinin and Andrey Korotayev. Finally, we mention the Fürstenfeld's initiative, founded since 2009 with Melitta Becker's help in the framework of the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Research in this Austrian city. A relevant part of the author inside this book participated from the beginning in the work of the group. The individual contributions to this volume are linked together by a common interest in knowledge. This is the theoretical view of the phenomenon of the globalization. From the beginning, it was not further defined or limited to certain approaches, particularly an independent theory of the globalization was not intended. We started from the fact, that every legitimately revealed theoretical approach can contribute legitimately to a later theory of the globalization. In this way, the further contacts with Nico Stehr and the members of the Dresden group for the investigation of the security problems arose, mainly with Ernst Woit. Hegel defined the philosophy as the flight of the Owl of Minerva, which "begins its flight only with the falling twilight". Through the theoretical investigation of the globalization always becoming interdisciplinary, we wanted by no means to debate about this incomparable aphorism. We simply started from the conviction, that a new reality should not remain without any description.

Football Talk: Sociological Reflections on the Dialectics of Language and Football

The paper examines the relationship between football and language from a sociological point of view. This has often been couched in negative terms but the paper argues that such a view distorts the majority of ‘Football Talk’. The discourse surrounding football within everyday interactions is often positive and integrative. ‘Football Talk’ acts as a lingua franca amongst football supporters. This language code is therefore both inclusive and exclusive.