Search results

This chapter draws on my affective memories and personal history of fandom and fascination with the celebrity body of Sharon Stone and with the gendered narratives she embodied through playing a particular character type of the icy cool, feminine trickster who seduces a dominant or hypermasculine male action hero in Hollywood films of the 1990s. Through close analysis of images, scenes and dialogue, the chapter explores the construction of the Sharon Stone persona and character type within action-thriller film case studies of Total Recall, Basic Instinct, The Specialist and Last Action Hero. These films are positioned as pedagogical tools as well as pleasurable texts, engaging theory around fandom and ‘fictional realities’ (see also Frauley, 2010) to intentionally blur the boundaries between popular culture texts and the ‘real’ life of fans. From a fan perspective, this chapter explores the emancipatory potential of these filmic narratives and moral pedagogies; reconsidering what the feminine Sharon Stone character teaches the masculine action hero within the film, and what she also teaches us beyond the film. For while the rise and fall of the Sharon Stone character in action-thriller narratives is typically constructed in misogynistic moral terms anchored in eroticised violence, it is the strength, resilience, power and transcendence promised by her embodied star image and its seductive, defiant, idealized femininity which the fan remembers, and which echoes still in fantasy futures beyond the filmic text.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the local, national and global actions from the UK to reduce the impact of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on human health.

Synthesis of UK government policy, surveillance and research on AMR.

Activities that are taking place by the UK government, public health and professional organisations are highlighted.

This paper describes the development and areas for action of the UK AMR strategy. It highlights the many interventions that are being delivered to reduce antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistant infections.

Biblio‐Techniques, which was incorporated in 1980, developed a product based on IBM hardware, a commercial database management system, and the Washington (Western) Library Network software. The company's product was innovative and promising but complex and incomplete, and required further development. The company tried to bootstrap that development through up‐front fees from customers who believed in the product. However, the lack of coherent management doomed the effort to failure. This article presents a candid discussion of the rise and fall of Biblio‐Techniques, and details the remarkable relationship between it and its customers. The article is accompanied by four sidebars, two of which are contributed by former customers of Biblio‐Techniques.

Researchers have argued that video games have great utility for learning. Games promote experiential learning and can be used to facilitate active learning. This paper examines the potential of video games in education. In particular, it examines the benefits of game modding compared to playing and/or creating games. However, video game classes have been primarily attended by male students. This paper looks further into the gender issue regarding the use of video game modding in education. This is demonstrated through a course developed by the authors on game design. The main goal of the course was to introduce middle school and high school female students to IT and assist them in acquiring five basic IT skills. During the course, survey data was collected from participating students. Results from the surveys as well as analysis of student projects and anecdotal evidence suggest that using video game modding is successful in increasing self‐efficacy and motivation as well as teaching female students basic IT skills.

THE Reference Department of Paisley Central Library today occupies the room which was the original Public Library built in 1870 and opened to the public in April 1871. Since that date two extensions to the building have taken place. The first, in 1882, provided a separate room for both Reference and Lending libraries; the second, opened in 1938, provided a new Children's Department. Together with the original cost of the building, these extensions were entirely financed by Sir Peter Coats, James Coats of Auchendrane and Daniel Coats respectively. The people of Paisley indeed owe much to this one family, whose generosity was great. They not only provided the capital required but continued to donate many useful and often extremely valuable works of reference over the many years that followed. In 1975 Paisley Library was incorporated in the new Renfrew District library service.

Information technology is gradually making an impact on the organization of interlending. Bibliographic access is improving but document delivery has not kept pace. Rapid developments in electronic publishing and optical disc technology are likely to change this, although cost will be a barrier for the immediate future. Telefacsimile transmission has become a quicker and more reliable means of document delivery. Optical discs can not only store information but can be indexed and searched, and would achieve rapid document delivery, with the production of hard copy for users. It is doubtful, however, whether most users want fast supply, and whether it is worth the extra cost. The concept of copyright may need reviewing in the light of electronic media. Payment will be required for every use, and libraries could be bypassed. Optical discs and associated equipment may themselves be shared among libraries. ILL departments as such may no longer be needed, because the operations will be absorbed in line functions such as reference, acquisitions and circulation, but ILL knowledge and skills will be needed more than ever.

The article seeks to provide an overview of 55 recent books (2009‐2011) on higher education, with special emphasis on the authoritative overview edited Altbach et al., American Higher Education in the Twenty‐First Century (Johns Hopkins, 3rd Edition, June 2011, 511 pp.).

Books are grouped in nine categories: Global trends, Losing autonomy, Faculty, Students, Finance, Digitization, Curriculum, Diversity, and Moving forward. A concluding Coda discusses an important new paradigm of four types of scholarship, proposed in the seminal 1990 report on Scholarship Reconsidered, and the two types of scholarship that continue to be badly lacking in the academy, to the detriment of the world, the nation, and higher education itself.

American higher education is undergoing many changes and stresses, and all of the books considered here point to a “bleak horizon” in various ways, in part caused by the outdated structure of higher education. Altbach issues a timely call for a new “sense of academic mission,” which is discussed in the Coda.

This uniquely broad and up‐to‐date “frontier frame” overview, enabled by the GlobalForesightBooks.org web site on current affairs books, emphases the many perspectives on higher education, provides a broad frame to appreciate current thinking, and encourages more synthesis that seriously addresses the “Knowledge for What?” question.