Archive: The Gnovis Blog
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Just because I’m giving up on Tumblr doesn’t mean you should
The Socratic Librarian is giving up on Tumblr. To give you an idea why, I was actually tempted to call this post “Giving up on Dumblr.” Tumblr’s easy interface of posting and sharing content seemed great at the time, but I feel like my interest in creating my own content through – typically writing in longish-form – makes it a bit hard to fit in among the Tumblr community.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Child of the Dark: What do we hear?
When thinking about how cultural representations of people in developing countries get transmitted to the developed world, one novel that bridges that gap is Child of the Dark: The Diary of Carolina M
Categories: Globalization Column, The Gnovis Blog
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"Imported from Detroit": Selling the Country and Cars
Commercials embody more than product placement and promotion. They embody a certain cultural collectivism. We laugh and cry along great distances in unison at 30-second spots designed to elicit the most visceral emotions to achieve a solitary goal – sell. This year’s Super Bowl Sunday was replete with a variety of commercials tugging on innumerable cultural references; however, one in particular employed an oft-ignored allegory for American patriotism with bona fide success.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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"A Diamond is Forever"
Flowers. Chocolates. Heart-shaped boxes. Love letters. Romantic dinners for two.
For many of us, these are the things we most associate Valentine’s Day with—which is all well and fine. If the boys over at De Beers have their way, though, these aren’t the only things we’ll be thinking of.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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State of the Union, Modern City Planning, and Bloodletting: Interdisciplinarity, Anyone?
In his 2011 State of the Union Address, President Obama made the point that “There are hundreds of thousands of students excelling in our schools who are not American citizens [. . .] who come here fr
Categories: 2011, Globalization Column, The Gnovis Blog
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Recognizing Culture
In my last post , I ended with the following statement: “Depicting development is a struggle, but we must always remain cognizant of culture and relational representations.” Understanding culture is necessary not only to depict development but also to enact development projects. This is understood as necessary and imperative for all development practitioners.
Categories: 2011, Globalization Column, The Gnovis Blog
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An Assessment of the Coming-Clean Conversation
Admitting one’s faults and coming clean with another about a wrongdoing is one of the most difficult forms of interaction. The timing of the disclosure never seems to be right and the speaking plan developed by the guilty rarely remains on script. As communication researchers, we can account for this because we know the old sender-message-receiver model no longer represents a true explanation of the communication process; variables such as feedback, environment, and non-verbal communication influences the direction of a conversation.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Mulder and Scully Go to School
American philosopher Richard Rorty once famously theorized that truth is not discovered by science, but made by language. “Truth-with-a-capital-T — constructed?” you say. “Not existing in the great mysterious ether as some untouchable condition, but made by us?” I know, I know. I can already hear the rejection in your voice. And for good reason.
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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Google Alert: Art Project, Take 1
As far as the internet is concerned, Google is certainly a trusted name. Providing game-changing web tools time and time again, it would probably be a fair assessment that Google’s mass-scale projects have, in recent years, seriously affected the ways we have integrated the web into how we navigate and experience our everyday lives. This time, however, Google is looking to tackle their most culturally nuanced subject yet: art.
This past week Google went public with their latest venture: The Google Art Project .
Category: The Gnovis Blog
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An Apology: Pop Culture and Theories of Affect
I’d like to begin with a confession: I end every Glee episode in tears, and I particularly enjoy it.
Category: The Gnovis Blog