While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.

The Act of Creation

The present report is submitted in response to General Assembly resolution 61/106, by which the Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Optional Protocol thereto. As requested by the Assembly, a brief overview of the status of the Convention as at 3 August 2007 is presented. The report also contains a brief description of technical arrangements on staff and facilities made necessary for the effective performance of the functions of the Conference of States Parties and the Committee under the Convention and the Optional Protocol, and a description on the progressive implementation of standards and guidelines for the accessibility of facilities and services of the United Nations system. Recent efforts of the United Nations and agencies to disseminate information on the Convention and the Optional Protocol are also described.

わかりやすい障害者の権利条約 : 知的障害のある人の権利のために = Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities

Rabelais and His World.

Preface 1. Sexuality and the historian 2. 'That damned morality': sex in Victorian ideology 3. The sacramental family: middle-class men, women and children 4. Sexuality and the labouring classes 5. The public and the private: moral regulation in the Victorian period 6. The construction of homosexuality 7. The population question in the early twentieth century 8. The theorisation of sex 9. Feminism and socialism 10. Sex psychology and birth control 11. Towards a conservative modernity 12. The state and sexuality 13. The permissive moment 14. Personal politics and moral conservatism 15. A new world? Index

/pdf/sex-politics-and-society-the-regulation-of-sexuality-since-2jb0u7nmwl.pdf

Sex, Politics and Society. The Regulation of Sexuality since 1800

Launched in 2005 as a video-sharing website, YouTube has become an emblem of participatory culture. A central feature of this website is the dazzling number of derivative videos, uploaded daily by many thousands. Using the ‘meme’ concept as an analytic tool, this article aims at uncovering the attributes common to ‘memetic videos’ – popular clips that generate extensive user engagement by way of creative derivatives. Drawing on YouTube popularity-measurements and on user-generated playlists, a corpus of 30 prominent memetic videos was assembled. A combined qualitative and quantitative analysis of these videos yielded six common features: focus on ordinary people, flawed masculinity, humor, simplicity, repetitiveness and whimsical content. Each of these attributes marks the video as incomplete or flawed, thereby invoking further creative dialogue. In its concluding section, the article addresses the skyrocketing popularity of mimicking in contemporary digital culture, linking it to economic, social and cul...

/pdf/an-anatomy-of-a-youtube-meme-4hvdmuf4e3.pdf

An anatomy of a YouTube meme

Beyond a Joke

Notes on Contributors Introduction: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Humour and Comedy S.Lockyer & M.Pickering Comic Racism and Violence M.Billig Race and Ethnicity in Popular Humour D.Howitt & K.Owusu-Bempah Humour and the Conduct of Politics J.Morreall Parody and Decorum: Permission to Mock J.Palmer Breaking the Mould: Conversations with Omid Djalili and Shazia Mirza S.Lockyer & M.Pickering Merry Hell: Humour Competence and Social Incompetence K.Willis Privacy, Embarrassment and Social Power: British Sitcom F.Gray Comedies of Sexual Morality and Female Singlehood D.Chambers The Ambiguities of Comic Impersonation M.Pickering & S.Lockyer Bibliography Index

Beyond a joke : the limits of humour

Two years ago, as we were planning this book, a story made the headlines. It was featured in all the major newspapers in Western Europe. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister and billionaire media magnate, had begun his term as president of the European parliament in Strasbourg with an ill-judged and highly offensive remark. He had rounded accusingly on the German MEP, Martin Schulz, with the suggestion that he should take a part as a guard in a film about Nazi concentration camps. Most of those present were appalled, though Berlusconi beamed broadly after delivering his insult. Berlusconi is renowned for possessing the gift of the gaffe, but this was a comic blunder of enormous proportions. He was widely condemned for his crude national stereotyping and crass moral insensitivity, but he then managed to slip further into the mire by claiming that in his own country, Holocaust jokes have been ‘doing the rounds’ for years because Italians knew how to laugh about ‘that kind of tragedy’. His attempt at damage limitation only succeeded in causing offence further afield, among Italy’s Jewish community and Jewish people around the world. Even in his own country, the newspaper La Stampa pronounced Berlusconi’s remark poisonous, and said: ‘A joke can ruin everything.’

Introduction: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Humour and Comedy

In this article we analyse letters of complaint about instances of comic discourse where the humour is regarded as overstepping the mark and causing offence. We are particularly interested in how t...

Dear Shit-Shovellers: Humour, Censure and the Discourse of Complaint

British television comedy has often ridiculed the complexities and characteristics of social class structures and identities. In recent years, poor white socially marginalised groups, now popularly referred to as “chavs”, have become a prevalent comedy target. One of the most popular and controversial television “comedy chavs” is Little Britain's fictional teenage single mother, Vicky Pollard. This article examines the representation of Vicky Pollard in light of contemporary widespread abuse of the white working class. Highlighting the polysemic and ambivalent nature of Vicky Pollard's representation, the article argues that whilst Little Britain's characterisation of Vicky Pollard largely contributes to contemporary widespread demonisation of the working class, there are moments within Little Britain when a more sympathetic tone towards the poor working class may be read, and where chav identities are used to ridicule the pretensions, superficiality, and falsity of middle-class identities. The article co...

https://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/8843/2/Fulltext.pdf

Sharon Lockyer

Papers

Beyond a Joke

Beyond a joke : the limits of humour

Introduction: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Humour and Comedy

Dear Shit-Shovellers: Humour, Censure and the Discourse of Complaint

Dynamics of social class contempt in contemporary British television comedy