title: Men Without Limits: Exploring the subversive potential of hypermasculinity in transgressive fiction

authors: Bond, Mark Wayne

subjects: Masculinities

abstract: (Hyper)masculinity is a universal and ostensibly rewarding concept, but only when performed within cultural limits. If these limits are violated, hypermasculine performances cease to be rewarding and instead begin to subvert the norms they are designed to uphold. Such destabilising performances are found in transgressive fiction, a genre that seeks to contravene cultural norms and taboos via extremely violent or sexual performances. While transgressive fictions often incorporate various physical and sexual behaviours that code conventional representations of masculinity, they derive much of their narrative energy from the subversion of those very conventions. 
Using Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957), Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory (1984), Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991), and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) as examples, this thesis will argue that the conjunction of transgression and (hyper)masculinity has the potential to expose and satirise sociocultural structures of meaning. Firstly, this thesis will demonstrate how transgressive texts subvert language by challenging the signifying power of (hyper)masculine speech; secondly, it will discuss the purpose of rituals in affirming masculine norms, and show how transgressive fictions undermine this purpose by stripping ritualistic performances of their legitimising potential; thirdly, it will demonstrate how representations of transgressive hypermasculinity foreground heterosexual masculinity as mimesis while simultaneously exposing its futile suppression of homosocial or conventionally feminine drives. Finally, it will show how transgressive narratives prompt a reading of masculinity as inherently problematic by detaching (hyper)masculine performances from conventional rewards and resolutions.

text: Men Without Limits: Exploring the subversive potential of hypermasculinity in transgressive fiction (Hyper)masculinity is a universal and ostensibly rewarding concept, but only when performed within cultural limits. If these limits are violated, hypermasculine performances cease to be rewarding and instead begin to subvert the norms they are designed to uphold. Such destabilising performances are found in transgressive fiction, a genre that seeks to contravene cultural norms and taboos via extremely violent or sexual performances. While transgressive fictions often incorporate various physical and sexual behaviours that code conventional representations of masculinity, they derive much of their narrative energy from the subversion of those very conventions. 
Using Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn (1957), Iain Banks’s The Wasp Factory (1984), Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho (1991), and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club (1996) as examples, this thesis will argue that the conjunction of transgression and (hyper)masculinity has the potential to expose and satirise sociocultural structures of meaning. Firstly, this thesis will demonstrate how transgressive texts subvert language by challenging the signifying power of (hyper)masculine speech; secondly, it will discuss the purpose of rituals in affirming masculine norms, and show how transgressive fictions undermine this purpose by stripping ritualistic performances of their legitimising potential; thirdly, it will demonstrate how representations of transgressive hypermasculinity foreground heterosexual masculinity as mimesis while simultaneously exposing its futile suppression of homosocial or conventionally feminine drives. Finally, it will show how transgressive narratives prompt a reading of masculinity as inherently problematic by detaching (hyper)masculine performances from conventional rewards and resolutions.

year: 2016

title: Displaying 3D images: algorithms for single image random dot stereograms

authors: Witten, Ian H.

abstract: This paper describes how to generate a single image which, when viewed in the appropriate way, appears to the brain as a 3D scene. The image is a stereogram composed of seemingly random dots. A new, simple and symmetric algorithm for generating such images from a solid model is given, along with the design parameters and their influence on the display. The algorithm improves on previously-described ones in several ways: it is symmetric and hence free from directional (right-to-left or left-to-right) bias, it corrects a slight distortion in the rendering of depth, it removes hidden parts of surfaces, and it also eliminates a type of artifact that we call an "echo". Random dot stereograms have one remaining problem: difficulty of initial viewing. If a computer screen rather than paper is used for output, the problem can be ameliorated by shimmering, or time-multiplexing of pixel values. We also describe a simple computational technique for determining what is present in a stereogram so that, if viewing is difficult, one can ascertain what to look for.

text: Displaying 3D images: algorithms for single image random dot stereograms This paper describes how to generate a single image which, when viewed in the appropriate way, appears to the brain as a 3D scene. The image is a stereogram composed of seemingly random dots. A new, simple and symmetric algorithm for generating such images from a solid model is given, along with the design parameters and their influence on the display. The algorithm improves on previously-described ones in several ways: it is symmetric and hence free from directional (right-to-left or left-to-right) bias, it corrects a slight distortion in the rendering of depth, it removes hidden parts of surfaces, and it also eliminates a type of artifact that we call an "echo". Random dot stereograms have one remaining problem: difficulty of initial viewing. If a computer screen rather than paper is used for output, the problem can be ameliorated by shimmering, or time-multiplexing of pixel values. We also describe a simple computational technique for determining what is present in a stereogram so that, if viewing is difficult, one can ascertain what to look for.

year: 1993

title: Putting the draft learning progression framework - Maori in the New Zealand Curriculum - to work: An Illustration

authors: Johnson, Diane

subjects: Māori language education

abstract: How language curricula are implemented in the classroom is of critical importance. Here, we take one achievement objective from the draft Learning Progression Framework for Māori in mainstream classes and demonstrate one way in which it can be realised as a core integrated skills lesson, that is, as a lesson that introduces new language (core lesson) through all four skills - reading, writing, listening and speaking (an integrated skills lesson). The lesson is preceded by a discussion of the type of planning that accompanies the implementation of language curricula.

text: Putting the draft learning progression framework - Maori in the New Zealand Curriculum - to work: An Illustration How language curricula are implemented in the classroom is of critical importance. Here, we take one achievement objective from the draft Learning Progression Framework for Māori in mainstream classes and demonstrate one way in which it can be realised as a core integrated skills lesson, that is, as a lesson that introduces new language (core lesson) through all four skills - reading, writing, listening and speaking (an integrated skills lesson). The lesson is preceded by a discussion of the type of planning that accompanies the implementation of language curricula.

year: 2003-09