Year: 2019, 2019
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis elucidates the role of play and games—the ludic—in Julio Cortázar's novel Hopscotch (1966; translation of Rayuela, 1963) through a range of resonant theories. Literary gameplay dominates the formal, linguistic, affective, reflexive, and thematic dimensions of Hopscotch, which are analyzed through concepts borrowed from play theorist Roger Caillois, among others, and… more Full Text: LUDIC FICTIONS, LUCID GAMES: PLAYING HOPSCOTCH WITH JULIO CORTÁZAR (TOWARD A THEORY OF LITERARY PLAY) A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the …
Year: 2018, 2018
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis explores the seemingly innocuous call to "grow up," which is never simply a biological imperative. It is also a moral one. Demanding that one should "grow up" is not demanding that one grow older, but that one transform into a specific kind of subject – the "grown up." In the reading advanced here, The Little Prince thermalizes the suppleness of… more Full Text: VISIONS OF THE SEDANTARY “I”/EYE: SUBJECTIVATION IN THE LITTLE PRINCE A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY …
Year: 2017, 2017
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>The end of the Cold War and the global triumph of neoliberalism were accompanied by the evolution of certain themes in dystopian fiction. According to some of its advocates, such as Francis Fukuyama, neoliberalism's success signified the "end of history," understood as ideological evolution, since the decline of communism left Western liberal democracies without any major… more Full Text: THE THIN LINE BETWEEN HELL AND HERE: DYSTOPIAN FICTION UNDER NEOLIBERALISM A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences TRENT …
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis studies a subset of players of video games called "power-gamers" who play games in a way that mirrors labour as opposed to leisure. Through ethnographic fieldwork and exploration this thesis examines what constitutes "power-gaming" and seeks to unpack the differences between skill, fun, and labour. Chapter One analyzes how ethnographic fieldwork is… more Full Text: DENIZENS OF VIRTUAL WORLDS: POWER-GAMERS AT “PLAY” A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, …
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is a critical response to Evgeny Morozov's article proclaiming the death of the cyberflâneur. Suspicious of the superficiality of his argument, I developed a practico-theoretical project to prove that the cyberflâneur is not dead but alive – or, if it were dead, to rescue it from its grave and bring it back to life. In the course of my response to Morozov, I develop a… more Full Text: ON THE CYBERFLÂNEUR: A NOMADOLOGY OF WANDERING A Thesis Submitted to the Committee of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, …
Year: 2015, 2015
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>New conditions of materiality are emerging from fundamental changes in our ontological order. Digital subjectivity represents an emergent mode of subjectivity that is the effect of a more profound ontological drift that has taken place, and this bears significant repercussions for the practice and understanding of the political. This thesis pivots around mathematician Grigori '… more Full Text: THE MATERIALITY & ONTOLOGY OF DIGITAL SUBJECTIVITY: GRIGORI “GRISHA” PERELMAN AS A CASE STUDY IN DIGITAL SUBJECTIVITY A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in …
Year: 2014, 2014
Member of: Trent University Graduate Thesis Collection
Abstract: <p>This thesis is a theoretical study of Facebook's surveillance project. It begins by taking one of the predominant organizational forms of modern surveillance, Foucaultian panopticism, and examining the ways in which its form, along with Foucault's broader model of the disciplinary society, is realized, remixed and extended by Facebook's virtual form. Following this… more Full Text: CONTROL, SURVEILLANCE AND SUBJECTIVE COMMODIFICATION ON FACEBOOK A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences TRENT UNIVERSITY …
