Vernacular Virtual: Toward a Philippine New Materialist Poetics

Toward a Materialist-Formalist History of Twentieth-Century Irish Literature

Most accounts of contemporary Irish culture tend to be largely affirmative, evenWhiggish, in cast. The contemporary cultural moment is recurrently described as one characterized by renaissance, experiment, and iconoclasm, a moment vitalized by the emergence of radical new voices, styles, media, forms, and energies. This upbeat view is clearly underpinned by a broader sociohistorical narrative, ...

Enacting a virtual 'ekklesia': online Christian fundamentalism as vernacular religion

Based on the interactive features of websites, researchers have distinguished between ‘religion online’ and ‘online religion’. Approaching online religious expression as ‘vernacular religion’ can transcend the distinction by focussing on the lived experience of believers. In this study, qualitative interviews and close textual analysis are deployed to locate four traits that define the ‘vernacu...

A Materialist Believe in Qualia ?

Should a materialist believe in qualia? Yes and no. 'Qual ia ' is a name for the occupants of a certain functional role that is spelled out in our tacitly known folk psychology. If materialism is true, there are no perfect occupants of the role, and hence no perfect deservers of the name. But in all probability there are imperfect occupants of the role, imperfect deservers of the name. Good eno...

Toward a New Generation of Virtual Humans for Interactive Experiences

and a civilian car. A seriously injured child lies on the ground, surrounded by a distraught woman and a medic from your team. You ask what happened and your sergeant reacts defensively. He casts an angry glance at the mother and says, “They rammed into us, sir. They just shot out from the side street and our driver couldn’t see them.” Before you can think, an urgent radio call breaks in: “This...

New materialist social inquiry: designs, methods and the research-assemblage