Mocking God and Celebrating Satan: Parodies and Profanities in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials

Given its stance against organised religion, it is perhaps not surprising that Philip Pullman’s award-winning trilogy His Dark Materials has, alongside the plaudits and praise, invited controversy and debate. Jacobs (The Weekly Standard, 2000), for instance, views the “anti-Christian” theme in Pullman’s work as both misleading and dishonest, whilst Hitchens (The Mail on Sunday, 2002) denounces it as atheistic “propaganda.” Of central concern to these critics, and others, is the impact of Pullman’s heretical understandings on impressionable young readers. I would suggest that such concern implies a somewhat questionable homogenisation of young readers, and fails to recognise the empowering potential residing in Pullman’s text. Indeed, by drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of “carnival,” a literary mode which subverts official culture through laughter and role reversals, it can be argued that far from indoctrinating the reader or promoting uncontested atheistic understandings, the heretical disruptions and inversions in Pullman’s religious theme encourage an altogether more positive and plural response.     

‘A Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven’: His Dark Materials, Inverted Theology, and the End of Philip Pullman’s Authority

This article argues that Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials may be read as a series which attempts to assault the Christian doctrine of God. We believe that this demonstrably accords with Pullman’s personal views, and that, through his story, he seeks to foster such views in his readership. However, the accuracy of his attack falls short of its intended mark when it is examined alongside classical Christian theology. The Authority which Pullman’s narrative destroys is actually more akin to the Christian view of the devil than he is the divine, and the victories of Will and Lyra—as a new Adam and Eve—have strong resemblances to the victories which Christianity claims for Christ and Mary. Pullman’s narrative, therefore, becomes an inversion of his deicidal intention rather than an inverting and revolutionary destruction of theology.

“Nothing Like Pretend”: Difference,Disorder, and Dystopia in The Multiple World Spaces of Philip Pullman’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">His Dark Materials</Emphasis>

This article examines the multiple worlds in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy in light Pierre Bourdieu’s “space of possibles” and the combination of chance and choice that impact Lyra and Will’s decisions. Rather than viewing chance or destiny as disempowering, this article considers how the protagonists’ choices also encourage readers to confront their own notions of space in the world outside the narrative. As Lyra and Will work to escape and restore the dystopic multiverses through which they travel, Pullman’s text challenges readers to recognize and repair the dystopias in their own worlds and to accept the Keatsian “negative capabilities” of ambiguity and mystery in place of facile escape. Given this pedagogical imperative, Pullman’s enclosure of Lyra and Will in their separate worlds lies at the heart of his resistance to escapist tendencies of fairy-tale endings. Fantasy must be grounded in reality because Pullman’s readers must also continue the struggle for wisdom in their own worlds no less than Lyra and Will.     

Missed Opportunities: The Subordination of Children in Philip Pullman’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">His Dark Materials</Emphasis>

In the His Dark Materials trilogy, Pullman reworks the fall of humanity into an ascent and suggests that ascent into adulthood through sexual experience is the desired goal for children. Although this ascent is accompanied by a radical reconceptualization of life and death, Pullman fails to offer any genuinely new ideas of the world with respect to adult–child relationships and the roles that children play in our society. Situated as it is at the crossroads of childrens literature and fantasy, His Dark Materials fails to take advantage of the freedom these two genres provide and reinforces current conceptions of children and their role in society.     

Curricular innovation in an undergraduate medical program: What is “appropriate” assessment?

In post-secondary education, there is a widely-held belief in a “gold standard” for evaluative studies of curricular innovations. In this context, “appropriate” assessment is understood to refer to experimental designs and statistically significant differences in group outcomes. Yet in our evaluative study of a medical undergraduate program, we did not find these concepts to be particularly applicable. Based on our experience, we now feel that it is appropriate to assemble an eclectic mix of scientific findings, show how they have been used for program improvement, and articulate the program’s theoretical rationale and social significance. In the absence of statistically significant differences, this comprehensive argument can be used to justify the deployment of curricular innovations. The same may be true of other educational programs that target hard-to-measure changes in affective domains.     

Developing new “Professionals”: Service learning in marketing as an opportunity to innovate in higher education

The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) promotes the use of student-centered participatory methodologies and the design of curricula focused on the acquisition of competences. The objective of this paper is to identify the categories of competence that contribute the most to achieving learning outcomes through the practice of Service Learning (SL) in the teaching of marketing. Using the categories described in the Tuning model, we design a model to analyze the relationships between perceived learning outcomes and competences. The main findings are: 1) there is no evidence of any relationship between perceived interpersonal and systemic competences and perceived learning outcomes, 2) there is a relationship between perceived instrumental competences and perceived learning outcomes and, 3) students do not perceive that achievement of learning outcomes is the cause of the grades they obtain. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications.     

“Anti-hero”Feature of Black Humor in Postmodernism Literary Fiction:with“Yossarian”in Catch-22 as an Example

Yossarian is the hero in Catch-22 written by Joseph Heller in 1961,bearing the typical"anti-hero"feature of Black Humor in postmodernism literary fiction.This paper aims at giving some of the examples to make readers clearer of the Black Humor and more familiar with the"anti-hero"feature of Black Humor in postmodernism literary fiction.     

“Nothing is impossible”: characteristics of Hispanic females participating in an informal STEM setting

Cultural Studies of Science Education - Factors that influence the underrepresentation of females in STEM careers begin early in childhood when gender biases and stereotypes emerge. Stereotypes...     

Langston Hughes’s Art of writing as Reflected in His Short Story“Early Autumn”

"Early Autumn"is written by Langston Hughes,the language is simple and graceful,without the ornate style,and the descrip tion of the characters’psychology and the scene is very distinguished,the characters’inner psychological activities are displayed by Langs ton’s excellent application of the Stream of Consciousness.The plain and simple conversation between Mary and Bill greatly reveals that the female character is experiencing the emotional undercurrents beneath the calm surface.what impresses on our readers is that Mary was too immature to solve the problems of love.From this point,we may learn about the practical significance which may benefit the young couple in reality.     

Using Nikola Tesla’s Story and His Experiments as Presented in the Film “The Prestige” to Promote Scientific Inquiry: A Report of an Action Research Project

This paper reports on an action research project undertaken with the primary aim of investigating the extent to which situations that evoke a sense of wonder can promote scientific inquiry. Given the intense interest, curiosity, and wonder that some students had begun to develop after seeing the film The Prestige, a science teacher used this film, which showed Tesla’s demonstrations on the wireless transmission of electrical power, as a source of curiosity and wonder. The class that participated in this action research project was an 11^th grade class in a rural area of southern Greece. Through an analysis of students’ journals, observation, informal discussions, and paper-and-pencil tests, it was found that students (a) became involved with Tesla’s life and work, thus developing an interest in current electricity; (b) learned about the skin effect, the biological effects of AC and DC currents; and (c) better understood Ohm’s law in their attempt to find out the degree of damage or injury a certain measure of current can cause. Moreover, some students began to develop scepticism and open-mindedness, in addition to their sense of wonder. The paper also presents a planning framework for teaching the Tesla story.     

“His body is human,but he has a tiracchāna heart”: An ethnographic study of the epigenesis of child abuse in Cambodia

In Cambodia, more than half of all children experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. This article examines how Cambodians view the causes and effects of child abuse and analyses its underlying cultural forces. Adopting a conceptual framework originally developed for the cultural context of violence against women, 110 cases of child abuse were ethnographically studied, comprising 61 cases of sexual abuse (50 girls and 11 boys), 26 cases of physical abuse (13 girls and 13 boys), and 23 cases of emotional abuse or neglect (13 girls and 10 boys). The perpetrators included fathers and other close relatives, lay Buddhist officiants and monks, and neighbors. Most informants viewed the sexual or physical abuse of children as stemming from “cultural attractors,” including blighted endowment caused by deeds in a previous life, a bad character starting early in life, astrological vulnerability to abuse, preordained entanglement between the child and the abuser (they are “fated” to meet), sexual craving, “entering the road to ruin,” and a moral blindness that portrays the abuser as blameless. Although these traits are similar to those identified in the explanations of violence against women, there were notable differences such as the role of the tiracchāna in explaining sexual abuse, including incest. Using these findings, this article identifies a cultural epigenesis of child sexual abuse, and provides a blueprint for developing a culturally responsive plan to prevent child abuse.     

“Without Manifest,None of the Book Would have Happened”: Place,Identity, and the Positioning of Canadian Adolescent Readers as Literary Critics

This article explores the interconnections between young adult fiction and young adult readers’ constructions of place within two contemporary texts. It employs a qualitative, multiple case study design, and utilizes discussion groups, semi-structured interviews, and the creation of place-journals to interpret some of the ways in which several young adult readers, from two contrasting Canadian communities (rural/urban), respond to how place and place-identity are construed within two young adult fiction texts: Tim Wynne-Jones’ Blink and Caution and Clare Vanderpool’s Moon Over Manifest. Drawing on geography theory and ecocriticism, it argues that the participants’ interpretations of place align with the theories of place put forth by cultural geographer Doreen Massey and ecocritic Lawrence Buell. In doing so, it illustrates how the participants reflected on place, inside and outside of the chosen texts, as geographers and ecocritics would have done. The methodological approach moves beyond strictly textual analysis to privilege the voices of adolescent Canadian readers, positioning them as critical interpreters of place.     

“This is Really Frying My Brain!”: How Affect Supports Inquiry in an Online Learning Environment

Research in Science Education -     

“Attraction,Attention, and Desire”: Consumer Culture as Pedagogical Paradigm in Museums in the United States, 1900-1930

Urged on by a young generation of reform-minded professionals, museums in the United States adopted the premises and practices of consumer culture in the early twentieth century. This article argues that this turn towards consumer culture resulted from a new institutional commitment to public education and a radical re-conception of visual pedagogy. In doing so, the article opens dialogue between two bodies of scholarship that rarely inform one another: the history of education and the history of early twentieth-century consumer culture. Focusing on natural history museums, the article explores how and why museum reformers gradually came to accept the psychological principles underlying advertising and salesmanship and to believe these principles could be employed on behalf of education. It chronicles how museum staff increasingly emphasised visual pleasure as a pedagogical tool, and constructed displays to arouse attention, attraction and desire for knowledge. Finally, it describes how these new pedagogical ventures did not always have the effect that reformers anticipated.     

“I expect to be engaged as an equal”: collegiality expectations of full-time,non-tenure-track faculty members

Nationally, non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) represent the new majority. Efforts to move the full-time NTTF role from expendable labor to sustainable professional position have led to improvements in policy and working conditions at many institutions. Still, the profession broadly has just begun to grapple with the implications of this shifting labor market on aspects of the profession traditionally reserved for tenure system faculty, such as collegiality. In this qualitative study we use Bess’s (High Educ Handb Theory Res 8:1–36, 1992) framework of structure, culture, and behavior to analyze the collegial expectations of 38 full-time, NTTF members. Participant accounts point to a desire for parity despite differentiation, and highlight the fundamental contradictions of a professional virtue that requires the independence of faculty for it to be fully expressed.