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Thomas Hardy (1840–1928), careful plotter of the fictional region of “Wessex,” is a novelist both acutely aware of the role of space in his works and remarkably fascinated by violence. Bringing these two significant elements of his fictional method together, this chapter examines the numerous violent spaces created by Hardy throughout his fiction. It focuses in particular on the ways in which different spaces, at first presumed to be safe, become invaded by extreme acts of violence. In the course of the chapter, I ask: How does this perversion of space by violence contribute to Hardy's literary aims? How do spatial relationships and boundaries intersect with his characterization? And does Hardy leave his readers with any hope for future spaces?

I suggest that Hardy's situation of acts of violence in a range of spaces, natural and domestic alike, is purposefully disorientating. It allows him to interrogate defined social ideas of “moral” indoor spaces and “wild” outdoor landscapes during the late Victorian period. There is, in fact, no such thing as a safe space in Hardy – spaces are ambiguous, changing and shaped by their inhabitants. The effect of violent spaces in Hardy, therefore, provides a challenge both to the conventional settings of nineteenth-century realist writing and any presumed knowledge of these environments. It might be tempting to see such spatial aesthetics as rather pessimistic, yet I argue that by dispelling the illusory link between space and safety, Hardy promotes a more sensitive awareness of everyday environments and our interactions with/within them.

While recent theoretical discussions around discourse–material relationality have facilitated important conceptual and analytical advancements within the broader field of CMS, less progress has been made methodologically with regard to innovating empirical methods and data modes. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to contribute to strengthening the methodological focus in the literature when grappling with the relationality of discourse–materiality and co-constitution. This includes a method-retooling framework inspired by new materialism.

In this article, the authors engage at the methodological level by developing a method-retooling framework that combines insights from organizational discourse studies and new materialist thinking. This framework enables a retooling of existing methods to become sensitive to multimodality and offers two concrete examples that were developed during fieldwork for a multi-sited and multi-method case study in 2018.

Based on the framework for retooling methods for multimodality, two illustrations are offered. These include retooling interviews by employing multimodal vignettes and retooling observations by using multimodal mappings. They are unfolded and discussed regarding their appropriation of discourse–material relationality.

This paper includes original research and method developments – adding a critical focus on the methodological aspects and potential advancements that are necessary in the wake of the ongoing debates around discourse–materiality across CMS and specifically within studies of organizational discourse and CCO. By suggesting a framework, the authors stimulate methodological explorations and contribute to furthering method developments that are equal to the rich conceptual progress made within the field.

How can we take multimodalities (the discursive, material, spatial, visual, emotional, embodied, etc.) of institutions seriously? In contemplating the implications of the “multimodal turn” (broadly defined) for institutional inquiry and theory, I first situate it within its intellectual current in the social sciences more broadly. I then use three ethnographic vignettes from Israeli high-tech conferences, all centering on “place” (as a – presumably first and foremost – geographical and material reality) to highlight the shortcomings of a “weak” multimodal approach and the promise of a “strong” one. Finally, I suggest ways to capture multiple modalities within an integrated account and discuss the challenges entailed in an institutional inquiry undertaken to acknowledge, and conceptualize, non-linguistic realities.

This chapter examines existing approaches to conducting qualitative process research (i.e., studies that view phenomena as becoming or evolving over time) by analyzing published process research in six premier organizational journals from 2010 to 2017. We identify four modes of performing process research that we label evolutionary process stories, performative process stories, narrative process stories and toolkit-driven process stories, and explore the particular ways in which they formulate and link empirical and theoretical elements. We also identify some of their specific challenges and suggest directions for the future.

In recent years, the number of journals focusing on a single literary figure has increased substantially. No longer are only a few select authors the sole focus of a journal or newsletter. With the proliferation of single‐author periodicals, implications for their use in locating literary criticism increases the importance of identifying such publications and recommending them to users. The importance of the effective use of journals devoted to a single author is highlighted by the fact that many such titles are not indexed in MLA International Bibliography, long deemed the most complete of the traditional sources for locating literary criticism. Perhaps the greatest strength of the relatively recent American Humanities Index lies is its coverage of single‐author titles. Humanities Index and Abstracts for English Studies also provide access to such journals. Arts and Humanities Citation Index does include a number of the titles too, but it is relatively difficult to use because of its subject approach.

This article explores the symbolic aspects of change agency on a learning platform designed to facilitate system-wide transformation in cancer care. A sensemaking–sensegiving perspective is adopted to analyze the construction of meaning in interaction between the leader of a regional cancer center, senior physicians, and an action research team in relation to patient-centered care. The analysis suggests that the physicians, as change agents, made sense of the vision from three quite distinct discourses in relation to the development effort. We argue that although meanings reconstructed in development initiatives may well be far from shared, this by no means implies that they are dysfunctional.

FOLLOWING ON from Roy Tomlinson's article (NLW July), while agreeing with much that he says I would like to enlarge on some points. I had hoped that the educational technology argument had been laid to rest after the publication in the Times higher educational supplement of correspondence occasioned by the Library Association's statements on resource centres.

Recent interest in the multimodal accomplishment of organization has focused on the material and symbolic aspects of materiality. We argue that current literature invokes diverse “multimodal imaginaries,” that is, ways of conceiving the relation between the material and the conceptual, and that the different imaginaries support a plurality of perspectives on materiality. Using the empirical case of a large urban renewal project in São Paulo, Brazil, we illustrate three different multimodal imaginaries – the concrete, the semiotic, and the mimetic – and indicate how each imaginary determines the way in which the site in question is discursively constructed. After outlining the different approaches, we discuss their theoretical implications, advantages, and constraints, setting an agenda for future studies of materiality in organizational and institutional contexts.