Swarm Intelligence: Rethinking the Multitude from within the Transversal Commons

Abstract

Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri argue that contemporary political and economic struggle entails reappropriating the monster as a potent image of multitudinous insurgency against Empire. This essay critically appraises the status of the monstrous in Hardt and Negri's work by bringing the field of critical animal studies into dialogue with Hardt and Negri in order to demonstrate how their conceptualisation of the monstrous nature of the multitude is not monstrous enough. While gesturing toward a posthumanist understanding of the multitude as a monstrous and unformed flesh of resistance and transformation, Hardt and Negri provide no clear discussion of the role of nonhuman animals within the multitude. Instead, nonhuman animals are reduced to mere allegories for the swarm intelligence of a decisively human multitude. The monstrous nature of the multitude remains mired within an anthropocentric speciesism that does not recognise the linguistic, cognitive and material resources that nonhuman animals may bring to the development of a swarm intelligence capable of overcoming the domination of nature inherent in Empire.     

Measures of Information Seeking: A Validation Study in the Context of Nonmedical Drug Use Behaviors

Health information is readily available and easily obtained from a variety of media and interpersonal sources. Although several studies have examined health-related information seeking, a comprehensive validation study of this measure is still needed. This study uses a longitudinal cohort study of Israeli university students (N = 800) aged 18–30, and a cross-sectional sample of U.S. college students (N = 498) to validate measures of information seeking about the nonmedical use of two drugs (marijuana and amphetamines) from a range of media and interpersonal sources. Information seeking measures for both drug types showed good convergent, discriminant, nomological, and test-retest validity. Results offer support for the use of these measures as valid indicators of the constructs for which they were designed. Implications for the use of these measures in future research are discussed.     

Expanding media and sexuality studies: a transnational study of sex museums

This article offers an introduction to my current project that investigates transnational flows of mediated sexuality among sex museums and other exhibitions of explicitly erotic materials. The project expands a communication studies focus on electronic media to consider alternative sites of mediation, such as the museum, as richly communicative. I explore the embodied context of museums to shift our traditional focus on audiences toward the more expansive concept of publics. I also trace different types of mobility—of discourses, materials, and people—in the circulation of commodified sexuality. The goal for these explorations is to theorize how sexual publics and mobilities intersect to construct an urbane, cosmopolitan, citizen consumer.     

Anatomy as a Model Environment for Acquiring Professional Competencies in Medicine: Experiences at Harvard Medical School

Anatomy education provides students with opportunities to learn structure and function of the human body, to acquire professional competencies such as teamwork, interpersonal skills, self-awareness, and to reflect on and practice medical ethics. The fulfillment of this wide potential can present challenges in courses that are part of an integrated curriculum and shorter than traditional courses. This new reality, together with students' increasing concern about the stresses within medical education, led to efforts at Harvard Medical School to implement practical steps toward an optimal learning environment in anatomy. These were based on core elements of ethical anatomy education and principles of trauma-informed care. Anatomy is conceptualized here as the “first clinical discipline,” with relational interactions between anatomical educators, medical students, and body donors/patients. Essential prerequisites for the implementation of this work were support by the medical school leadership, open partnership between engaged students and faculty, faculty coordination, and peer-teaching. Specific interventions included pre-course faculty development on course philosophy and invitations to students to share their thoughts on anatomy. Student responses were integrated in course introductions, combined with a pre-dissection laboratory visit, an introductory guide, and a module on the history and ethics of anatomy. During the course, team-building activities were scheduled, and self-reflection encouraged, for example, through written exercises, and elective life-body drawing. Students' responses to the interventions were overall positive, but need further evaluation. This first attempt of a systematic implementation of an optimal learning environment in anatomy led to the identification of areas in need of adjustment.     

The perceived value of work placements and part-time work and its diminution with time

This paper explores the perceptions of degree students at two UK universities regarding their work placement and part-time working activities, to assess if the two activities converge. The research comprises three stages: interviews for preliminary exploration of students’ perceptions towards work placement and part-time work; interviews to examine how placement opportunities link with career aspirations; a survey of students who had completed a placement, and those currently on placement. Students acknowledged part-time working helped their placement activity, providing transferable skills beneficial to both study and career aspirations. A significant finding was with respect to time: the closer to the placement activity the data was collected, the stronger the impact of appreciating the value of placement. The paper therefore highlights the value of timing in the assessment of work placement. It also offers value for universities’ by providing insight into students’ perceptions regarding embedded external work activities that can enhance graduate employability and career prospects.     

Identity Narratives: Stories from the Lives of Urban Adolescent Females

In this article, I present narratives told to me by female students of color who attended high school in an urban setting. Collected as part of an interpretive study in which I interviewed students during their senior year of high school and the first two years after graduation, these narratives focus on two themes: identity as oppositional and as contingent or shifting. I use these narratives to describe how youth simultaneously participated in and resisted school. I show that youth's shifting sets of identities shaped their participation in school, their definitions of success and the visions they held for the future. This article suggests that schools provide safe spaces for adults and young women to form mentoring relationships, that we reorganize schools so that school personnel have contact with fewer students, and finally, that we be careful not to write off students once they have children or because of poor academic records. The narratives belie simple explanations of success or failure for females of color living in poverty. Rather, they suggest the importance of listening to youth as we reformulate education policy and practice.     

Qualitative review synthesis: the relationship between inattention and academic achievement

Background: A body of literature has emerged that links inattentive symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to poor academic achievement. Major variation across studies renders conclusions about this relationship complex.

Purpose: This review will provide a qualitative synthesis of these studies that (1) use community samples and (2) examine inattention as a separate dimension from hyperactivity/impulsivity. The aim of this review is to ascertain whether the relationship documented between inattention and academic outcomes in ADHD also holds for the dimensional trait of inattention as manifest in non-clinical community samples of children and adolescents, taking into consideration both academic achievement and academic performance across age.

Design and methods: A comprehensive search was carried out using two databases. The PRISMA guidelines were used to report the search steps. The QUIPS tool was used to rate the quality of studies, followed by a best evidence synthesis to summarise these results.

Results: Out of 1748 citations found, 27 articles met the specific inclusion criteria. Results point to a strong effect according to the best evidence synthesis: 7 studies that have low risk of bias found that teacher-rated inattention is significantly predicative of poor academic achievement in community samples of children.

Conclusions: This review provides support for a consistent, negative relationship between classroom inattention as reported by teachers and both standardised academic test achievement and classroom performance outcomes for children in preschool (moderate evidence), elementary school and longitudinally from elementary to high school. The average relationship was stronger when classroom performance was measured, as compared to standardised achievement. However, the quantitative strength of relationship has not been confirmed with a meta-analysis due to heterogeneity and too few high-quality studies identified. Variance across the studies in terms of the strength of association suggests that other unexamined factors (e.g. cognitive function or motivation) may be contributing to this relationship. Implications for educators and clinicians who work within the school setting are discussed.