In this post, I will explore some potential sources of data that I can and will use for my thesis analysis. After meeting with Liz, I have decided to look to specific fictional texts that regard or represent earthquakes. Data After The Big One: This is a five-part fictional piece written for the science fiction […]
Actor Networks and Limited Effects of Audience Response to Media (Frameworks Part 2)
In Environmental Studies, we often approach ideas, problems, and situation with the framework of Actor Network Theory (ANT). Apart from a useful way to visualize movement and effect within a given context, ANT schematizes a topic and provides a trackable way to analyze relationships. As I explored with Latour’s and Le Guin’s theories, relationships between […]
Linear Technologies, Narrative Capacity: Latour and Le Guin (Frameworks Part 1)
Last semester in Environmental Theory, we dove into the very definitions of the word “theory” and explored the tricky facets of the field or fields. In class last week, Liz delineated theories in the natural science context from theories in the social science context. In the natural science context, theories are as good as it […]
Did I Answer Your Question?
Today I had two consecutive experiences that speak to two different aspects of my budding thesis. First, I went to my ENG 450 seminar on John Keats and we talked about literary theory. We asked huge questions like: What can a word do? What can a poem do? What are the limits of representation? Does […]
Tourist, Local, Resident, Worker: The Perception and Representation of Place in Lived Experiences and Travel Narratives in Touristic Settings of the Rural American West
Background While much of the theory surrounding tourism is distinctly 20th century, tourism not entirely a modern or postmodern phenomenon. Today the word “tour” perhaps invokes a stuffy, rehearsed, and controlled travel experience, but tours also describe modes of travel such as pilgrimages, military assignments and excursions, and expeditions undertaken by the likes of Don […]