VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
"Artist Writings: Critical Essays, Reception, and Conditions of Production since the 60s"
Keywords: artists' writings

This dissertation uncovers the history of what is today generally accepted in the art world, that artists are also artist-writers. I analyse a shift from writing by artists as an ostensible aberration to artist writing as practice. My structuring methodology is assessing artist writings and their conditions and reception in their moment of production and in their singularity. In Part 1, I argue that, while the Abstract-Expressionist artist-writers were negatively received, a number of AbEx-inflected conditions influenced and made manifest the valuing of artist writings. I demonstrate that Donald Judd conceived of writing as stemming from the same methods and responsibilities of the artist — following the guiding principle that art comes from art, from taking into account developments of the recent past — and as an essayistic means to argumentatively air his extra-art concerns; that writing for Dan Graham was an art world right of entry; and that Robert Smithson treated words as primary substances in a way that complicates meaning in his articles and in his objects and earthworks, in the process introducing a modernist truth to materials that gave the writing cachet while also serving as the basis for its domestication. In chronicling the reception of these artists’ written production at the time of its writing, I conclude that writing that could be related to artists’ visual practices is what resonated in the late 60s. In Part 2, I explore Frank Bowling’s public deliberation on the relationship of black experience to modernist painting in Arts Magazine; Art & Language’s supposition that an editorial might count as art — arguing that it always already came up for the count as secondary-primary artist writing; female artist-writers’ disclosure of their art and writing in new feminist-founded magazines; and critics’ recognition of artist writings as a critical space. I conclude by proposing that the profusion of and demand for artist writings were constituted by the poststructuralist death of the author along with a persistent meaning-limiting author-function. This study confirms that critical engagement with writing by artists is a challenge: to viewers/readers, to art writers, and to artist-writers during the nascent era of artist writing.
La Dame aux éventails. Nina de Villard, musicienne, poète, muse, animatrice de salon.
Keywords: French literature
nineteenth century
french salons
french history
women's studies
arts et lettres
condition féminine
salons parisiens
dis-neuvième siècle

De 1862 à 1882, Nina de Villard attire chez elle à peu près tous les hommes qui laisseront leur marque dans le monde des arts et des lettres : Verlaine, Mallarmé, Maupassant, Manet et Cézanne figurent tous parmi ses hôtes. Ayant accueilli ces grands hommes, Nina et son salon trouvent, par la suite, leur place dans plusieurs livres de souvenirs et romans qui, loin de rendre leur physionomie et leur personnalité, entretiennent plutôt la confusion. Portraits fortement polarisés présentant une muse régnant sur un salon brillant d’une part, et de l’autre, une femme dépravée appartenant à un univers d’illusions perdues, ces textes construisent une image difforme et insatisfaisante de Nina et de ses soirées. Face à cette absence de cohérence, nous sommes retournée aux sources primaires en quête de la véritable Nina et de son salon. La première partie de notre thèse est consacrée à Nina qui, malgré des années de formation conformes à la norme, remet en question la place qui lui revient : celle d’épouse et de femme confinée à l’intérieur. Nina est avide de liberté et revendique l’identité de pianiste et une vie où elle peut donner des concerts, sortir et recevoir quand cela lui plaît. Femme intelligente, elle emprunte la voie qui lui est offerte : celle de l’hospitalité. Là, dans ce milieu à la frontière du privé et du public, Nina crée un monde fantaisiste à souhait et devient ainsi un pôle d’attraction pour le talent et le génie. La seconde partie de la thèse est réservée aux soirées de Nina. Nous avons exposé, autant que possible, tous les éléments touchant à l’espace, au temps, à l’horaire, à l’accès et au personnel des soirées avant de tourner notre attention vers leur fonctionnement et leur ton. En étudiant, comparant, analysant et recoupant nos sources, nous avons été en mesure de redonner à Nina et ses soirées leur véritable personnalité, de montrer que l’histoire seule ne peut justifier l’extrême polarisation des textes qui les mettent en scène, et de conclure que ces portraits sont, en grande partie, des « fruits de la littérature ».
Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908): Fame, Photography, and the American 'Sculptress'
Keywords: Hosmer, Harriet
Photography--history--19th century
Sculpture History 19th century
Celebrity culture--19th century
Sculpture, neoclassical
Sculpture--Rome

“Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908): Fame, Photography, and the American ‘Sculptress’” is a case study inspired by one nineteenth-century sculptor’s career and a rare body of photographs showcasing the artist and her work. The American neoclassical sculptor Harriet Hosmer came of age near Boston, where she began her early artistic training. In 1852, at the age of twenty-two, she moved to Rome to further her career as a sculptor. Soon after, she became the most famous woman sculptor of her period. Her friends and patrons included Anglo-American literary figures, women’s rights activists, wealthy Americans, British aristocracy, and European royalty. This study asks what, if anything, photography had to do with Harriet Hosmer’s rise to fame. Hosmer’s life and work have been subject to much scholarly commentary in recent decades, with several writers attempting to account for her unprecedented international renown as a female sculptor. None of these writers, however, has centred an investigation on photography’s intervention in Hosmer’s career. This study foregrounds the intersection of sculpture and photography as it relates to Hosmer’s rapid rise in the mid-nineteenth-century artistic firmament. A substantial part of the dissertation undertakes a careful analysis of photographs depicting Hosmer and her work, as well as related archival materials, highlighting the ways in which Hosmer joined forces with commercial photographers to engineer her career success. At the same time, it provides insight into practices of commercial photographers vis-à-vis their portrayals of sculptors and their work. The dissertation teases out a complex web of mid-nineteenth-century concerns that anticipate modern-day preoccupations, including self-fashioning, identity formation, gender roles, androgyny, tourism, the rise of celebrity culture, and the artist’s complicity with and battles against the contemporary press. Taken together, it seeks to complicate and enrich our understanding of Hosmer and her vital engagement with photography, leading to a fundamental reinterpretation of her career. Moreover, it aims to provide a model for future investigations into the complex, fascinating, and still little understood relationship between nineteenth-century sculpture and photography.
Reasonable Hope: A Philosophical Counsellor's Approach to Post-Traumatic Stress
Keywords: Philosophical Counselling
Epistemology
Feminist Epistemology
Practical Philosophy

This thesis is a philosophical perspective on contemporary Philosophical Counselling (PC), especially with respect to recovery from traumatic stress. It is argued that “reasonable hope” is an outcome of this kind of therapeutic process. In other words, “reasonable hope” characterizes philosophy’s tangible contributions to well-being and freedom for those who wish to pursue it. Contemporary PC affirms, and in some instances advocates for, the value of reasoning and the existence of criteria for valid claims of “psychological truth”. Psychological truths are achieved through processes of philosophical distinction making as well as validity and coherence evaluations. In these epistemological contexts (i.e., those that pursue psychological truths with individual therapeutic subjects) the necessity for empathy becomes apparent. Phenomenologically speaking, empathy is revealed as a tool, and cultivated skill, of therapeutic listening. Thus this brand of reasonable hope argues that contemporary PC affirms the possibility of enhanced personal agency by supporting subjects’ understandings of the social forces that shape them, as well as their experiences, emotions, motivations - and, importantly, their chosen values. The distinct philosophical investigations of the first four chapters are brought together in the conclusion to inform this specific account of “reasonable hope”. It is reasonable, therefore, to hope to be freed (or at least significantly more freed) from limited meanings often associated with the instantiating forces of psychic and emotional injuries. It is reasonable to hope to understand some aspects of one’s self. It is reasonable to hope to be understood by others. And it is reasonable to hope that discursive investigations in empathetic contexts can render less powerful the effects of psychic pains, worries, burdens, realities and traumas. Finally, it is reasonable to hope that reflexive turns extend, and enable, agency in subjects (i.e., individuals and, sometimes, groups or communities). Reason and evidence affirm that we can influence our own happiness by identifying and working with our emotions, motivations and values. In this way reason reveals both strong and weak reasonable hope. We learn too, that some hope lies at the limits of reason. Nonetheless, by reasoning we learn, and enact, not empty hopefulness but hopefulness grounded in sound investigations.
Human-livestock Relations in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant
Keywords: archaeology
zooarchaeology
faunal analysis
human-animal relations
Near East
southern Levant
Israel
Early Bronze Age

This dissertation is concerned with the nature of human-animal relations in the context of southern Levantine village life in the Early Bronze Age. While scholars have devoted considerable effort to exploring the human exploitation of animals as an economic pursuit, investigating the human engagement with animals as a pursuit not limited to normative notions of economic rationality is the overall aim of this research project. This project articulates a broadened conception of the various roles that domesticated animals played and, concomitantly, how the multiple roles of livestock required people to make complex decisions not readily inferred from models of economizing rationality alone. I pursue this objective through three main research questions: (1) What was the nature of animal exploitation at an Early Bronze Age village in the southern Levant? (2) How did the taphonomic history of the site affect animal bone assemblages? (3) How can knowledge gained from answering these two questions, in combination with anthropological theories and ethnographic data pertaining to human-animal relations, inform our understanding of Early Bronze Age peoples’ perceptions of livestock in relation to new agricultural strategies of the period? These questions are addressed through a zooarchaeological analysis of faunal remains from two Early Bronze I strata at Horvat ‘Illin Tahtit (HIT) in central Israel. Following theoretical, environmental, archaeological and methodological backgrounds in Chapters 1 through 3, Chapter 4 provides detailed description and analysis of the faunal data from HIT. Chapter 5 offers an interpretation of the zooarchaeological data that is inspired by anthropological and archaeological theories of human-animal relations, ethnographic data from communities that engage with livestock, and culture-historical knowledge of the Early Bronze Age. The broad conclusion drawn from this research is that secondary products exploitation established a level of co-dependency between people and livestock that was unprecedented until the Early Bronze Age. Finally, Chapter 6 offers retrospective commentary on the strengths and limitations of the data, methods and theories that are used in this dissertation.
Ortensio Scammacca (1562?-1648) and the Jesuit Theatre. A Critical Edition of Il Tommaso in Londra
Keywords: Ortensio Scammacca
Jesuit Theatre
Critical Edition
Il Tommaso in Londra

Ortensio Scammacca (1562?-1648) and the Jesuit Theatre. A critical edition of Il Tommaso in Londra Ziba Ahmadian Doctor of Philosophy Italian Studies Department University of Toronto 2013 Abstract This thesis is a critical edition of Il Tommaso in Londra, a tragedy by Jesuit Father Ortensio Scammacca (Lentini 1562?-Palermo 1648). The play is contained within the twelfth edition of Tragedie sacre e morali (Palermo: Decio Cirillo, 1648). The purpose of the study is to expose Scammacca’s dramaturgical contribution to Jesuit and post-Tridentine theatre by thoroughly analyzing Il Tommaso in Londra. An excursus on the evolution of sacred drama from its origins to the theatre of the Jesuits elucidates the historical and poetic aspects of sacred tragedy as a theatrical genre. A historical review delves into the politico-cultural mood of sixteenth and seventeenth century Italy with regards to the Protestant Reformation. The socio-religious circumstances of Sicily, as well as the regulations imposed on the representations are also evaluated. Additionally, a lengthy discussion of the Ratio Studiorum (1599) and the Spiritual Exercises explores the declamations as a significant pedagogical method of the Jesuits, and opens the debate on Scammacca’s theatre. Care is taken that the poet’s motivation to compose a tragedy based on Thomas Becket’s life does not go unnoticed. The study of Il Tommaso in Londra ends with an extensive philological note. Scammacca's tragedies have previously been studied and evaluated by scholars such as D’Agata and Donzelli. Nevertheless, this assessment of Il Tommaso in Londra reveals the profoundness, richness, and deliberate artifice of Father Scammacca's dramas in view of the Counter-Reformation spirit. The study discloses a remarkably integrated historical play, and recognizes the poet as the most prominent playwright of the era.
Managing Operations of a New Product or Service Introduction
Keywords: Uncapacitated Facility Location Problem
Facility Location Theory
New Product Introduction
Marketing
Marketing Targetability
Marketing Resource Allocation
Demand Diffusion

We consider an innovative firm introducing a new product (or service) to a network of markets over a short sales horizon. We study the two main decisions of the firm in managing demand at or after the introduction, namely decisions on setup of distribution channel(s) to make the product accessible to customers, and on marketing through multiple marketing channels and over time to support the distribution. These two decisions are interconnected: Marketing activities and accessibility of customers to the product jointly influence the willingness to purchase of customers, which in turn determine the ability of the firm to generate sales over time. This interconnection of the two decisions as well as their competition for the same capital resources is challenging to manage over a short sales horizon, and misallocation of resources between them can potentially compromise the profitability of the introduction. In Chapter 2, we create a framework to jointly decide on setup of distribution channels and marketing activities. It also incorporates the effect of word-of-mouth on temporal demand evolution that is essential in sales of a new product (or service). Our experiments suggest that jointly managing these two decisions can achieve a large profit improvement for the firm. We find that even though asymptotic instances of our problem can be solved using existing methods in the literature, such methods cannot provide the optimal strategies for a wide instances of our problem common in practice. Consequently, in Chapter 3 we provide two exact and two heuristic solution methods to solve the problem. The application of our model and one of our methods is further illustrated through analysis of a case on entrance of Nespresso company to the city of Toronto, Canada. In Chapter 4, we focus on the marketing resource allocation subproblem of the problem considered in Chapters 2 and 3, which is an important and challenging problem on its own. We impose more structure on the temporal evolution of demand, but obtain several managerial insights on the nature of the marketing resource allocation between multiple marketing channels and over time. We also study how the type of interaction between channels influence the optimal marketing resource allocation.
The Role of δ Subunit-containing γ-aminobutyric Acid Type A Receptors in Memory and Synaptic Plasticity
Keywords: GABAA receptor
extrasynaptic
delta
neurogenesis
memory
plasticity
dentate gyrus
CA1

Background: Extrasynaptic γ-aminobutyric acid type A receptors that contain the δ subunit (δGABAA receptors) are highly expressed in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus, where they generate a tonic conductance that regulates activity. GABAA receptor-dependent signaling regulates memory and neurogenesis in the adult DG; however, the role of δGABAA receptors in these processes is unclear. Accordingly, it was postulated that δGABAA receptors regulate memory and neurogenesis in the DG. Methods: A combination of genetic and pharmacologic techniques was employed. Memory in wild-type (WT) and δ subunit null (Gabrd–/–) mice was assessed using object-place recognition, novel object recognition, contextual discrimination, fear conditioning, fear extinction and water maze tasks. Long-term potentiation, a molecular correlate of memory, was examined using the in vitro hippocampal slice preparation. To ascertain the effects of enhanced δGABAA receptor activity, the receptor-preferring agonist 4,5,6,7-tetrahydroisoxazolo[5,4-c]pyridin-3-ol (THIP; 4 mg/kg) was applied either as a pre-treatment (2 weeks prior to testing) or an acute treatment (30 min prior to testing). Results: Gabrd–/– mice exhibited impaired object-place recognition, novel object recognition and contextual discrimination relative to WT mice. Further, Gabrd–/– mice exhibited impaired fear extinction, although fear acquisition was enhanced. Pre-treatment with THIP improved memory in WT but not Gabrd–/– mice. Consistent with these behavioural findings, neurogenesis was impaired in Gabrd–/– mice and enhanced in WT mice by pre-treatment with THIP. In contrast to the beneficial effects of pre-treatment with THIP, acute THIP impaired memory and long-term potentiation in WT mice. Conclusions: These results indicate that δGABAA receptors promote memory and neurogenesis under baseline conditions. These processes may also be enhanced by long-term activation of δGABAA receptors with selective drugs, provided that these drug are absent during testing. Further, these findings show that acute activation of δGABAA receptors impairs memory and long-term potentiation. Implications: δGABAA receptors may be a therapeutic target for the long-term treatment of memory dysfunction during aging, injury and disease. These findings also have clinical implications, as δGABAA receptors are molecular targets for therapeutic and recreational drugs. The acute amnestic effects of these compounds may be partially explained by δGABAA receptor activity.
Mixing Patterns of Discharged Ballast Water and the Implications for Biological Invasions in the Huron-Erie Corridor of the Great Lakes
Keywords: ballast water discharge
biological invasions
mixing
dispersion
Huron-Erie Corridor
Allee effects
life history
scaling
zooplankton size spectrum
Laser Optical Plankton Counter

Ballast water discharge (BWD) is the main vector of aquatic invasions in the Great Lakes. The process of aquatic invasions is subject to both water mixing, which increases the difficulty of establishment due to dispersion, and strong Allee effects, which correspond to the Allee threshold A, below which a population will go extinct. However, the magnitudes of both processes remain unknown in the Huron-Erie Corridor (HEC), which is composed of the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair and Detroit River. The HEC has become the most notable invasion hotspot within the Great Lakes. To explore the physical mixing of BWD, dye releases were conducted in the St. Clair River. Strong jet mixing was observed during BWD, with a 100-fold initial dilution. The subsequent mixing in the St. Clair River was two-dimensional, resulting in a power-law decay of peak concentration Cp over time t, with the exponent ~ −1. To quantify the Allee effects, a new model of population dynamics was developed and calibrated by empirical life-history scalings to body mass. The protocol provides an elegant way to estimate A and demonstrates a linear relationship between A and carrying capacity. To investigate the invasibility in Lake St. Clair, spatial patterns of zooplankton were measured by the High Resolution Laser Optical Plankton Counter across the lake. The results reveal distinct ecological zones characterised by disparate zooplankton size spectra, implying heterogeneous carrying capacity therefore heterogeneous A. In summary, the observed mixing can dilute most discharged species below the estimated A; however, the dilution could be dwarfed by biological aggregation for non-passively-distributed species. The observed high invasibility in the HEC can be ascribed to its unique ecological setting: littoral habitats (high suitability) dominated by pelagic water (low A). These findings will assist in the management of BWD and invasion biology.
The Role of Innate Immunity and Interferon-Inducible Genes in the Regulation of Host Defense in Re-Emerging West Nile Virus and Influenza
Keywords: Innate Immunity, Interferon-Inducible Genes, West Nile Virus, Influenza
CXCL-10, CXCL-14

In these studies, we showed that CXCL-10, an interferon-inducible chemokine, is highly expressed early following infection with Influenza and West Nile Virus. CXCL-10 can induce lymphocyte apoptosis by sustained activation of p38 MAPK. This study showed that p38 MAPK is the kinase that inactivates antiapoptotic Bcl-2 proteins by phosphorylation, activation of executer caspases, and initiation of programmed cell death in response to CXCR-3 ligation in T cells. The high expression of CXCL-10 induced by viral infection may contribute to the T cell depletion noted during the pathogenesis of severe remerging viral infections and play a role in antiviral defense. Alternatively, CXCL-10 may contribute to the prompting of apoptosis in other subsets of T lymphocytes, including those lymphocytes that were transiently activated but later lacked the appropriate sets of specific co-stimulating signals required to ensure their survival. We studied WNV infection as a serious disease of old age. We studied the molecular and immunological foundation of the age-related decline in innate immunity and increase in vulnerability to WNV. We observed a qualitative and quantitative defect in TLRs expression and function in advanced age, which likely leads to augmented vulnerability to neurological WNV infections. Furthermore, we reported for the first time that aged WNV patients who express higher levels of proinflammatory cytokines exhibited fewer symptoms. Moreover, we also showed that high expression of CXCL-10 is associated with symptomatic WNV disease and CXCL-9 with asymptomatic and may be good prognosis of WNV disease. We studied CXCL-14 function in viral and bacterial infection by generating CXCL-14 knockout mice (CXCL-14KO). Other than decreased body weight, the CXCL-14KO mice exhibited no noticeable phenotype. Macroscopic and microscopic analysis revealed no gross or obvious morphological abnormalities. We showed that in mice, CXCL-14 does not seem to be indispensable for blood cell homeostasis and protective immune responses against Influenza virus or E. coli infection. In conclusion, CXCL-10 induced apoptosis may contribute to innate antiviral defense. Down regulation of TLRs and their function due to aging may have consequences for innate immunity to WNV. Finally, the role of CXCL-14 in antiviral defense is uncertain but likely serves a redundant function.