title: Assemblage drawings as talking points: Deleuze, posthumans and climate-activist teachers

authors: Everth, Thomas

abstract: In this paper, we employ Deleuzian philosophy to explore the complex challenges confronting teachers and education systems posed by the climate emergency and the implications of the resulting posthumanist turn. Self-identified climate-activist teachers working in schools in Aotearoa New Zealand were asked to draw Deleuzian assemblages of their educational realities and of themselves while contemplating the climate emergency. Their thought-provoking drawings were used as semiotic artefacts during unstructured Zoom interviews, leading to rich conversations. Through this process, the drawings channel affect within the research assemblage, entangling the reader actively into the research process. Insights gained from the participants problematise the perspectives of teachers in response to the climate emergency and lead us to conceptualise the potential of teachers as Deleuze’s nomadic change makers toward posthuman futures.

text: Assemblage drawings as talking points: Deleuze, posthumans and climate-activist teachers In this paper, we employ Deleuzian philosophy to explore the complex challenges confronting teachers and education systems posed by the climate emergency and the implications of the resulting posthumanist turn. Self-identified climate-activist teachers working in schools in Aotearoa New Zealand were asked to draw Deleuzian assemblages of their educational realities and of themselves while contemplating the climate emergency. Their thought-provoking drawings were used as semiotic artefacts during unstructured Zoom interviews, leading to rich conversations. Through this process, the drawings channel affect within the research assemblage, entangling the reader actively into the research process. Insights gained from the participants problematise the perspectives of teachers in response to the climate emergency and lead us to conceptualise the potential of teachers as Deleuze’s nomadic change makers toward posthuman futures.

year: 2022-12-01

title: Breast cancer talk: A cross-linguistic study of lexical verbs occurring with generic pronoun ‘you’

authors: Malik, Sara

subjects: corpus linguistics

abstract: Breast cancer discourse is increasingly studied within medical humanities, reflecting a broader interest in illness narratives and patient-centered storytelling (DeShazer, 2005; Frank, 1995). Using a cognitive, usage-based approach, we explore how New Zealand (NZ) English and Pakistani (PK) Urdu speakers use language, particularly metaphor, speech acts, pronouns and verbs to express their cancer experiences on YouTube. This paper focuses on one aspect: the use of lexical verbs following generic second-person pronouns, analysing their semantic patterns which offer insight into how speakers construe illness. Drawing on Payne’s (2011) verb categories and expanding Durst-Andersen et al.’s (2013) classification of
state verbs, this study explores the range and types of verbs in both datasets. The data includes 46 narratives from NZ and 36 from PK, posted between 2011 and 2023 by organisations such as the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation and Pink Ribbon Pakistan. These videos were transcribed using Whisper AI and filtered to include only patients’ discourse, then organised into eight narrative topics. A mixed-method approach was used: quantitative analysis with AntConc extracted keyword-in-context (KWIC) instances of you, followed by qualitative analysis to identify generic uses of you and the types of verbs that follow it. The study investigates (a) shared and distinct lexical verbs across datasets, and (b) insights from the most frequent verbs. Preliminary findings show that most verb types are similar across both datasets, with action and state verbs being the most frequently used. Building on Stirling and Manderson’s (2011) findings about the use of generic you pronoun in Australian English, we report that speakers of both NZ English and PK Urdu similarly use generic you, along with state verbs to foster empathy and action verbs to convey credibility and authority in illness narratives. We argue that pronoun-verb pairings function as strategic tools for positioning cancer experiences within speaker narratives.

text: Breast cancer talk: A cross-linguistic study of lexical verbs occurring with generic pronoun ‘you’ Breast cancer discourse is increasingly studied within medical humanities, reflecting a broader interest in illness narratives and patient-centered storytelling (DeShazer, 2005; Frank, 1995). Using a cognitive, usage-based approach, we explore how New Zealand (NZ) English and Pakistani (PK) Urdu speakers use language, particularly metaphor, speech acts, pronouns and verbs to express their cancer experiences on YouTube. This paper focuses on one aspect: the use of lexical verbs following generic second-person pronouns, analysing their semantic patterns which offer insight into how speakers construe illness. Drawing on Payne’s (2011) verb categories and expanding Durst-Andersen et al.’s (2013) classification of
state verbs, this study explores the range and types of verbs in both datasets. The data includes 46 narratives from NZ and 36 from PK, posted between 2011 and 2023 by organisations such as the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation and Pink Ribbon Pakistan. These videos were transcribed using Whisper AI and filtered to include only patients’ discourse, then organised into eight narrative topics. A mixed-method approach was used: quantitative analysis with AntConc extracted keyword-in-context (KWIC) instances of you, followed by qualitative analysis to identify generic uses of you and the types of verbs that follow it. The study investigates (a) shared and distinct lexical verbs across datasets, and (b) insights from the most frequent verbs. Preliminary findings show that most verb types are similar across both datasets, with action and state verbs being the most frequently used. Building on Stirling and Manderson’s (2011) findings about the use of generic you pronoun in Australian English, we report that speakers of both NZ English and PK Urdu similarly use generic you, along with state verbs to foster empathy and action verbs to convey credibility and authority in illness narratives. We argue that pronoun-verb pairings function as strategic tools for positioning cancer experiences within speaker narratives.

year: 2025

title: HIEMPA: Hybrid Instruments from Electroacoustic Manipulation and Models of Pütorino and Aquascape

authors: Whalley, Ian

subjects: music

abstract: The HIEMPA project combined a team of people with technical, artistic, environmental and cultural expertise towards an artistic outcome aiming to extend the New Zealand sonic art tradition. The work involved collecting audio samples from the aquascape of the Ruakuri Caves and Nature Reserve in Waitomo, South Waikato, New Zealand; and samples of a variety of pütorino – a New Zealand Mäori wind instrument. Following a machine learning analysis of this audio material and an analysis of the performance material, hybrid digital instruments were built and mapped to suitable hardware triggers. The new instruments are playable in realtime, along with the electroacoustic manipulation of pütorino performances. The project takes into account the environmental and cultural significance of the source material, with the results to be released as a set of compositions. This paper discusses the background research and process of the project.

text: HIEMPA: Hybrid Instruments from Electroacoustic Manipulation and Models of Pütorino and Aquascape The HIEMPA project combined a team of people with technical, artistic, environmental and cultural expertise towards an artistic outcome aiming to extend the New Zealand sonic art tradition. The work involved collecting audio samples from the aquascape of the Ruakuri Caves and Nature Reserve in Waitomo, South Waikato, New Zealand; and samples of a variety of pütorino – a New Zealand Mäori wind instrument. Following a machine learning analysis of this audio material and an analysis of the performance material, hybrid digital instruments were built and mapped to suitable hardware triggers. The new instruments are playable in realtime, along with the electroacoustic manipulation of pütorino performances. The project takes into account the environmental and cultural significance of the source material, with the results to be released as a set of compositions. This paper discusses the background research and process of the project.

year: 2008