Changing our bodies, changing ourselves? From Popular culture: A users Guide written by Susie OBrien and Imre Szeman is an excerpt which comes from a chapter in the Identity and the Body textbook. The textbook d

Changing Bodies and Minds in the Modern World "Changing our bodies, changing ourselves? From Popular culture: A user's Guide" written by Susie O'Brien and Imre Szeman is an excerpt which comes from a chapter in the "Identity and the Body" textbook. The textbook discusses the "powerful impact of cultural practices" which it has on the daily lives and a "sense of identity" of humans. Susie O'Brien is an assistant professor at McMaster University for courses offered in the Humanities while Imre Szeman is Canada research chair in Cultural Studies at the University of Alberta. In the chapter, the authors discuss the variety of relationships between the identity and the body of an individual. The authors of the article, explore the various ways of popular culture in which North America which is obsessed with the body. The modern ways which there are in the world today are bounded to references which are made to the body, from products for the body to representations of the body. The dualist philosophy described as "I think therefore I am" (Descartes's famous formula) through "...overlapping oppositions- spirit vs. matter, mind vs. bod, reason vs. passion, nature vs. culture - ... map out relations of being ...and relations of power" (Susie O'brien and Imre Szeman, 2). This suggests that the body and mind are connected to represent the identity of a person, it can be proven that

  • Word count: 912
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Attempts at love.

attempts at love what is love? love takes your breath away. love is not being able to breath b.c you've found something more important. this is how i would spend every night of my life if i could. just sitting and playing the guitar and talking. you make my life adventurous and each moment is a new surprise. i don't think i could smile anymore than i did tonight. from your porch i can see the stars. it makes me at ease sitting back there. sometimes i wonder what you are thinking about. could you be thinking the same thing as me. i could tell you anything and you would understand and think that i was even more compelling. i don't know how you do it. you are so brave, so rebellious, so crazy. that's why you are so neat. every second with you is amazing and new. i want to feel the way i do around you all the time. it's like nothing matters anymore and everything is normal. you won't touch me and you won't talk to me, not the way i want. you pretend. you tell me things i can not bear t o take and you go on with your everything, but you want nothing. you try to be nice and i can't stand it. i long to touch you and i long to be there. the answer is always no and i am shot down again. another failed attempt at satisfaction. should i just give up. everything in me tells me to give it up, i will never have it. but there is one little voice left that tells me to give it a chance.

  • Word count: 1430
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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When I began to read Edmundson's article, I attempted to sense an overall theme that, for me would characterize the tone of his piece.

Rachel Asher Assignment #3 When I began to read Edmundson's article, I attempted to sense an overall theme that, for me would characterize the tone of his piece. I felt that if I found what was holding it together and the motivation behind it, then I would be able to analyze the piece with respect to that theme. I read through the article once quickly and I was struck by how resentful the author sounded. So, I read through it again and highlighted certain areas which I thought illustrated that resent. By the end, I had highlighted about 3/4 of the document! The more I looked for examples the more I was struck by the fact that almost every sentence seemed to support my thesis. Feeling one-sided, I attempted to take a different stance in order to see things from another angle. However, I was so blinded at this point by the overwhelming antipathy in the article that I couldn't see anything else. It felt to me like looking at that optical illusion of the woman and the candle and how once you focus on one image, the other fades out of focus and you can never properly see it again. Since the author's resentment was all that I could see, I tried to form an argument that the whole essay was built upon that hate and attempted to narrow my highlighted material down to the best points that would support this premise. I attempted to be fair and to not take examples out of the

  • Word count: 637
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Cambridge was not well known for producing famous people; perhaps the most well known person in Cambridge was an inhabitant of Main Street, Mike Pirrit.

MIKE PIRRIT Cambridge was not well known for producing famous people; perhaps the most well known person in Cambridge was an inhabitant of Main Street, Mike Pirrit. The only problem was that many people knew of him for the wrong reasons - busking, sleeping rough and his arrest. Others knew his story and respected him for what he had been through. He himself had achieved his goals in life, everyone sets goals in life and his was to 'make it through', his proof was the fact that he sat on the side of the road each and every day. Mike had been abandoned on the side of the street as a baby, but at this stage, obviously was nameless. He lived unhappily at the local orphanage for the next twelve years, refusing to accept the rejection that he had suffered from his parents. His parents are still unknown to this day and the surname "Pirrit" was chosen by Mike himself, not that many people knew it. Mike and the orphanage searched long and hard for a foster family for him, they had no success. With staying in the orphanage out of the question, for Mike it seemed like taking to the streets was his only option. So, at the age of twelve, he left the orphanage with one set of clothes and a tin whistle. The tin whistle had been found with Mike and he taught himself how to play it, it was his prised possession. This is when he set his goal of making it through life, with dignity and

  • Word count: 1006
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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My name is Charley and I am an older man living in an apartment complex in New York City in the 1950's.

My name is Charley and I am an older man living in an apartment complex in New York City in the 1950's. I am a large man, and this physical trait lends to my immovability as a person; when I set my mind on some task, it's going to get finished. I've been told that I'm slow of speech and laconic, and I suppose these characteristics fit me well. I'm rather conservative by nature and I don't really like radical change but I'm a forgiving and reasonable man who tries to help the people around me as best I can. This especially applies to my friend Willy Loman who as of late is getting very stressed out. I do what I can to try to relieve his stress through some late night poker sessions but it just isn't enough. I've even offered the man a well paying job to get him back on his feet but he's too damn proud to accept my aid. But that's enough about Willy. The only family I have left in this world is my son Bernard and I'm so very proud of him; he's making something of himself, he's going to be big someday, presenting his cases in front of the Supreme Court! Not only that but he already has a wife who's given birth to two beautiful boys. I'm so happy for him. As to my occupation, I work in the same business I have for most of my adulthood. By now I've risen into a management position pulling in a reasonable salary, easily more than enough for myself. This essentially

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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In my essay I am going to analyse the 2001 first inaugural speech by George W. Bush and the 2009 inaugural address of Barack Obama. I have chosen these particular speeches because Bush and Obama had very different policies, thus I assume it should be real

Select any two American presidential inaugural addresses for which a video recording is available. Which do you think is the better address, and why? Throughout more than two hundred years Americans have witnessed fifty-six presidential inaugural addresses. Inaugural address is the second part of the inauguration ceremony, which also consists of the oath of office and a couple of prayers. In my essay I am going to analyse the 2001 first inaugural speech by George W. Bush and the 2009 inaugural address of Barack Obama. I have chosen these particular speeches because Bush and Obama had very different policies, thus I assume it should be really interesting to see whether their addresses were different or maybe quite similar. I will begin with comparing rhetorical features of the speeches. Both presidents used an antithesis several times. According to Atkinson (1984), an antithesis (also known as a contrastive pair or, simply, contrast) is used to 'project a completion point' and to deliver a surprising punch line, which keeps an audience focused (p. 73). Dlugan (2009) argues that contrast is 'sometimes the best way to highlight and sharpen concepts'. In his speech Bush says: 'The peaceful transfer of authority is rare in history, yet common in our country.' He says so to praise democracy in the United States, thank to which a transfer of authority has always or almost always

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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The family system under analysis is depicted in the movie The Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood.

The family system under analysis is depicted in the movie The Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood. The movie was released in the year 2002 and stars the following main characters: Sidda (Sandra Bullock), Vivi (Ellen Burstyn), Teensy (Fionnula Flanagan), Necie (Shirley Knight), and Caro (Maggie Smith). In the movie the mother, Vivi, plays the main role in the executive family subsystem and the daughter, Sidda, plays the main role in the sibling subsystem. Throughout the movie it is told how their boundaries had been breached and severely weakened. The family is an alcoholic family with Vivi being the identified alcoholic. Vivi's behavior affects her whole family but the focus is on the relationship with Sidda. The father plays an almost silent role in the family system until the sixth stage of Vivi's life cycle. The siblings are shown in short clips in the movie to show the effects of Vivi's behavior on them as children but not as adults, only the conflict with Sidda is played out in her adulthood. Vivi, Teensy, Necie and Caro make up the Ya Ya Sisterhood that includes Sidda in the end. The women, Teensy, Necie and Caro, are not part of the family system but are extremely important to it. Throughout the movie the women are all a part of one another's lives and help each other through lives transitions. Vivi is shown going through her life cycle changes and the women are

  • Word count: 936
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Traditional Celebration of the Chinese New Year

Traditional Celebration of the Chinese New Year Chinese New Year starts with the New Moon on the first day of the new year and ends on the full moon 15 days later. The Chinese New Year falls on a different date each year. The 15th day of the new year is called the Lantern Festival, which is celebrated at night with lantern displays and children carrying lanterns in a parade. The presence of the ancestors is acknowledged on New Year's Eve with a dinner arranged for them at the family feast table. The spirits of the ancestors, together with the living, celebrate the start of the New Year as one great community. The communal feast symbolizes family unity and honors the past and present generations. Departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family. Of all the traditional Chinese festivals, the new Year was perhaps the most elaborating, colorful, and important. This was a time for the Chinese to congratulate each other and themselves on having passed through another year, a time to finish out the old, and to welcome in the new year. Common expressions heard at this time are: KUONIAN to have made it through the old year, and SINNIAN to congratulate the new year. New Year Activities On the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve, every door in the house, and even windows, have

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Explain why Roger Asham wrote Toxophilus is written in English

In Passage 2 on Page 423 of Baugh and Cable's A History of the English Language, Roger Ascham is explaining why he is writing Toxophilus in English. Explain why he thought it necessary to do this. Roger Ascham, born in 1515, wrote Toxophilus in the early 1540's as a justification of the art of the English Longbow - hence the Greek title, which translates as 'the lover of arrows'. Yet to the linguistic scholar, the most fascinating part of the book, lest he also be an enthusiast in late mediaeval weaponry, is Ascham's defence of his use of English to write the book, despite its Greek title. Ascham, who was at the time reader of Greek at Cambridge, could easily have written Toxophilus in Latin or Greek, and says as much in the introduction to the King: "to haue vvritten this boke either in latin or Greke (vvhich thing I vvold be verie glad yet to do, if I might surelie knovv your Graces pleasure there in)1" Yet having chosen to write in English, he prefaced his work with a justification of his writing in the vernacular. In this essay, I shall try to explain why. I shall briefly chart the rise of English back to prominence after the Norman Invasion, which banished English to a level lower even than the other vernaculars for some centuries. I shall expound upon each of the reasons Ascham himself gives for, as well as describing the arguments more commonly made against the

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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The Saucy Boy.

THE SAUCY BOY There once was a poet and a good one at that One evening roasting apples he looked as he sat Out the window to the storm the rain pouring down As he sat rocking comfortably a face with no frown He thought to himself of the passers out by He thought and he knew not one of them dry The threads in their clothes are soaking with rain Then a knock on the door, a child's cry of pain? "Open the door" pleaded a soft childish voice "Its freezing out here I'll die you've no choice" The poet being kind and caring as he was Opened the door to a stranger, then paused. "A small naked boy, what the hell is this?" "What's going on here, someone taking the piss?" "Oh no kind sir I'm all on my own with nowhere to go" He stood standing there his fair locks did flow The boy stood and shivered but waited no more The poet stepped back they went through the door "Poor little thing" the poet then said "An apple some wine? Come in dry your head" Still pale with cold and trembling a bit He saw his bow, that the rain had spoilt it And the colours of the arrows did up and run The weather had destroyed them this wasn't much fun He was a pretty boy with sparkling bright eyes He looked innocent and sweet no trouble no lies His fair hair was wet but still curled well This boy looked an angel as well he did smell The poet by the fire took the boy on his lap Warmed

  • Word count: 795
  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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