Going Beyond Theme Writing :: Expository Essays

Going Beyond Theme Writing So here I am trying to think of something to write about that will go beyond a theme. My writing experiences have been pretty narrow minded. Basicly, if the writing was not in a theme format, I immediately excluded it. From elementary school and to today, research papers in theme formats were expected. I was not taught how to write in any other way. I figured that if my writing was accepted, if I got A's on them, and if the teachers never hinted as to any other way to write, there must be only ONE TRUE WAY TO WRITE! How Hitler-ish. Just as Hitler was wanting to rule the world of people, theme writing was to rule the world of writing. So here I sit; trying to ponder what life would be like without a trace of theme writing. No more guaranteed A's. Professors wouldn't have any easy time grading papers - they will actually have to read all of the carefully constructed papers. We couldn't make them do that, now, could we? Going 'Beyond a Theme'. Let me think about what that means to me. Should I analyze and tear it up trying to find a glimpse of meaning? What is 'Beyond a Theme'? (I see the light!) Asking me what is beyond a theme is just like asking me what is beyond the universe. What is out there is only a speculation. Scientists have studied that question for centuries and still have no clear answer. I could let my mind wander around and just think up an answer as to what is out there. Wandering - my mind does that a lot. And in the middle of classes of all times! That universe thing is stuck in my head now. I have the planetary system stuck to my ceiling in my room here. The planets are not spaced at the correct scale distances though. Sometimes they fall down because they don't have enough sticky stuff holding them up. The world is ending! That would be a good excuse for handing this paper in late! The planets glow in the dark too. Stars are also up on the ceiling. "Reach for the stars." I was always told that when I set myself some goals. Earth to me! I am in my dormroom not spaced out in my ceiling planetary system. This non-theme paper. How does it sound?

Egyptians :: essays research papers

Egyptians "Did the early Egyptians have help in building the pyramids?" All over the world remain fantastic objects, vestiges of people or forces which the theories of archaeology, history, and religion cannot explain. There is something inconsistent about our archaeology. They have found electric batteries many thousands of years old. They have found strange beings in perfect space-suits with platinum fasteners. They have also found numbers with fifteen digits- something not registered by any computer. How did the early men acquire the ability to do this? par tab Some say all these questions can be answered through the evidence found in ancient wall paintings and carvings, and the sculpture and buildings found in many different parts of the world. All over Europe and South America there is evidence left behind by the ancient people of these great civilizations.par tab First, a look at whether there is or could be intelligent life on other planets. It is conceivable that we world citizens of the twentieth century are not the only living beings of our kind in the cosmos. Because no alienspar from another planet is on display in a museum for us to visit, the answer, "our earth is the only planet with human beings," still seems to be legitimate and convincing. But that is a very narrow-minded way to look at things. The idea that life can flourish only under terrestrial conditions has been made obsolete by research. It is a mistake to believe that life cannot exist without water and oxygen. Even on our own earth there are forms of life that need no oxygen. They are called anaerobic bacteria. A given amount of oxygen acts like poison on them. Why should there not be higher forms of life that do not need oxygen?par We are still convinced that our earth is the center of everything, although it has been proved that the earth is an ordinary star of insignificant size-30,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way. The human race is certainly more willing to accept the possibility of extraterrestria l contact now than it was, say, half a century ago. So if there is evidence shown the extraterrestrials did have an influence on ancient civilizations, we should be able to look at it and make a intelligent decision for ourselves.par tab Much evidence is found on the walls of ancient buildings and temples. The walls of tombs and even caves have the signature of something other than human. In Anannhet, Tassili there are rock paintings 8,000 years old with strong figures. These figures are flying above a spherical object with a hatch like lid and two

Better Community and Build a Healthier Life Essay

Better Community and Build a Healthier Life,† yesterday. Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit, ecumenical Christian community, has been created to make adequate housing a matter of conscience and action. Since its creation in 1976, it has built and improved more than 300,000 houses, sheltering more than 1,500,000 people in thousands of communities in North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Eastern and Western Europe, and throughout the Asia-Pacific region. Habitat’s work is made possible by affiliates or people who are dedicated to the cause of eliminating poverty housing. As of this writing there are 132 affiliates in the Asia-Pacific region and 2,291 worldwide. Habitat’s work is far greater than the current number of affiliates and supporters nonetheless. Hence as it continually strives to achieve its mission Habitat is likewise constantly calling more volunteers to take their part in re-building the world. Anchoring on a statement made by Dr. Stephen Post, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and co-author of the forthcoming book Why Good Things Happen to Good People: The Exciting New Research That Proves the Link Between Doing Good and Living a Longer, Healthier, Happier Life that, â€Å"There is now a convergence of research leading to the conclusion that helping others makes people happier and healthier. So the word is out – its good to be good. Science increasingly says so,† former President and co-founder of Habitat for Humanity, Jimmy –more– relates volunteering to building a healthier life. For more details on how to participate to the Habitat’s action for a cause, please visit http://www. habitat. org/. Contact Name: Phone: Website: E-mail: ###

Persuasion, Manipulation, and Seduction as Related to Human Communication Essay

Johnson 2 Since the beginning of the human race, human have use some sort of influence to get other to do what they want them to do. The earliest example of this can be seen in the Garden of Eden, where Adam was influenced to eat from the forbidden fruit. For the purpose of this paper we will attempt to compare the effect of persuasion, manipulation, and seduction as it relates to human communication. Much of human communication involves attempts to influence. It is done verbally and non-verbally, consciously and unconsciously, honestly and deceitfully. Some people may be swayed with reason and logic or by emotions and character. There is no doubt that the power to persuade is a coveted tool for anyone regardless of how they wish to use it. However, beyond simple persuasion are other acts of influence that are just as powerful. The terms persuasion, manipulation, and seduction are sometimes used interchangeable when describing influential behavior (Newell, 2010). Persuasion is the act of influencing others, who are conscious of the intent, through communication. That is they are conscious that attempted influencing is taking place. Also it is under the assumed umbrella of free will meaning that there is no form of duress or outside pressure involved that would force influence. While persuasion is an act that takes place between at least two conscious parties, manipulation happens when the side being influenced is not aware of it. That is a human is programmed over time to execute everyday decisions mindlessly based on the expected behavior of themselves and others. Manipulation takes place when a conscious person triggers an automatic response from an unconscious thinker. The art of seduction, as it is often described, is a kin to persuasion as its intent to influence is known. What sets it apart, Johnson 3 however, is the influencer (seducer) is setup to be the object of desire that will complete the missing parts of audience so that they may be complete (Codoban, 2006). Seduction is also a form of manipulation as it draws upon social programming and natural responses of people. As the tern is used mostly in the relationships of a man and a woman (or sexual preference), there are many programmed and natural responses that take place when a seducer successfully makes themselves the object of another’s desire (Newell, 2006). Sometimes the lines may be blurred when influencing takes place. There are definite moral stigmas attached to each of these influencing techniques. While persuasion has a broad connotation of simple attempts of influence to any audiences, manipulation and seduction have specific undertones of being immoral (Newell, 2006). Modern day persuasive devices are all around us and not all are as obvious as we they are, they can be very subtle. There are many ways in which people work to persuade. In advertising, commercials, magazines, movies, and political campaigns often times we see more empty promises, which classifies much of what we see in those arenas as seduction. On the other hand some of what we see in politics and marketing are closer to manipulation than seduction (Tuenge, 2010). Examples of manipulative devices given by Codoban (2006) were as follow, reciprocity, the consistency mechanism and social proof principle (p. 153-154).

How Serious Were The Problems Facing Nicholas I at the Start of His Reign? Essay

Nicholas I faced a series of problems ranging in severity at the start of his reign as Tsar, including the Decembrists conspiracy, the Polish revolt and the Russian economy. However the first problem of Nicholas’ reign was in fact the problem of who would become Tsar, himself of his brother Constantine. Since the previous Tsar, Alexander I, had had no children, the rightful heir was his brother Constantine, and next in line was his younger brother Nicholas. With news that Constantine had married and Polish Catholic and renounced his claim to the throne, Nicholas’ was to publish a manifesto declaring himself Tsar. But Milaroadovich, the Governor General of St Petersburg, reminded Nicholas of the custom of proclaiming the eldest living heir Tsar. With this advice given, Nicholas decided to take it, as he knew that the Guards had previously played a part in the succession of many a Tsar. Therefore Nicholas proclaimed Constantine Tsar only for Constantine to do the same to Nicholas. In the end, Constantine refused to travel to St Petersburg from Warsaw, and renounced his claim to the throne and thus proclaimed Nicholas I Tsar. The problem of the succession itself was not too serious but the fact that the Tsar and its administration were in a state of flux had some serious repercussions. This gave more breathing space for the Decembrists to plan their assassination attempt on Nicholas. On 14th December 1825, Nicholas was ready for the Oath of Allegiance ceremony. On that day Nicholas had been informed of both the Northern Society and the Southern Society by General Miloradovich. The general informed Nicholas that the Northern Society’s activities were being monitored, which was true, and that they posed no real threat, which was more debatable. There was definitely unease in the way Nicholas felt he should deal with the problem, he decided to go with Miloradovich’s plans of accepting that he was safe from the Northern Society as he had been reassured that they did not pose a significant threat. Nicholas was worried that if direct action had been used against the conspirators, it might provoke the revolt he sought to avoid. The problem of the Northern and Southern Society was made worse when a Tsar adviser Rostovstev chose to inform the Northern Society of his meeting with the Tsar of the society itself. The leak of information was a serious problem for the new Tsar, although Nicholas probably remained ignorant in the case of Rostovstev. However Rostovstev caused panic the Northern Society, which caused some officers to withdraw quietly but other others decided to go ahead with plan. Nearing the time of the allegiance ceremony, Miloradovich was shot by gathering rebels after trying to negotiate with them. Nicholas then took decisive action and crushed the Decembrist revolt with artillery fire. It was the conjuncture of the attempt on his life; the assassination of his general and leak of information that made the Decembrist revolt a problem of the utmost severity to Nicholas. The revolution so early on in his reign made Nicholas I more reactionary and more suspicious of liberal ideas. Another problem, that faced the majority of Tsar, but was of more prominence in the reign of Nicholas, was the problem of the Russian economy. Nicholas was keen on the idea of a railway system in Russia whereas his chief economic Minister Kankrin was more conservative and felt that it would only encourage the spreading of western ideas and encourage people to travel around more. Another problem was the fact that Russian had fallen seriously behind Western Europe in terms of production, with England far more progressed than Russia could even think. This economic problem brought up the issue of the social system of Russia, and whether or not it was possible to flourish economically without the abolition of Serfdom which was seen as a huge hindrance to Russia trade and it development. This problem was a very serious one, as it needed incredible intellect to find a solution that protected the Tsar’s autocracy and serfdom and that still developed the Russian economy. Another problem at the start of Nicholas I’s reign as the Polish Revolt of 1830 and 1831, a revolt that took place due to the spreading of revolutionary ideas from the like of France and Belgium. It was in November 1830 when the revolutionary ideas hit Poland and the Poles rose in revolt against their Russian overlords. Constantine, Nicholas’ brother, had failed to contain the situation and the revolutionaries had the support of the Polish army. It was nine months until the revolution was suppressed, and the uprising cost many Russian lives, including Constantine’s who died of cholera. Nicholas thought it best to revoke the constitution and replace it with a much more restrictive statute. Universities at Warsaw and Vilna were closed and from then on until the death of Nicholas, Poland was ruled under martial law and the administration was place under greater Russian control. Nicholas aimed to â€Å"russify† Poland, and to impose Russian ways, institutions and beliefs and eradicate the local customs, institutions and beliefs. All in all, Nicholas I faced some very serious problems at the start of his reign in 1825, right from the day he was proclaimed Tsar. It was these incidents at the beginning of his reign such as the Decembrist Revolution and the Polish Revolt that made Nicholas a very reactionary Monarch in the later years of his reign.

Photography Merge Into Art Essay

Photography is traditionally regarded positioned at the lightweight end of photographic practice and on the fringe of a true art-form. â€Å"Its close relationship to the economic imperatives of turnover makes the art photograph the transitory image par excellence. † However photography has emerged as a ubiquitous representational form, â€Å"with us from sunrise to sunset, in the privacy of our homes and on public streets, in a format we can hold in our hands and one that towers over us on billboards the size of buildings. Early criticisms of Photography as an art form described the new technique as one that directly reproduced reality. â€Å"However, the disparity between the photographic record and perceptual experience reveals the artistic, political, and representational potential of Photography. The photographic image maintains a privileged place in the pantheon of visual consumption. † The argument is ever present that the entire history of photography has been the chronology of a medium at the secondary border of art. Nineteenth-century amateur photographic societies and photography journals were arenas for protracted debates between those committed to Photography’s status. As a scientific recording tool and those determined to establish Photography as a fine-art form, the opportunity existed for accomplishment and establishment. Certainly gender and sexuality have been implicated in art Photography since the early twentieth century. But during the 1970s there was a marked shift of emphasis in the way that the female body was represented as a fetishistic object of desire in the work of photographers like Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Chris von Wangenheim and Deborah Turbeville. The long struggle to establish photography as a legitimate art form still continues today. There is a clear and obvious tendency of the art establishment to exclude and to narrowly restrict the boundaries of admissible photographic art. The established arts have all contributed to the formation of peripheral spheres of photo activity on the margins of art. † Many questions from the audience addressed the impact of digital technology on the art: of photography yet, the unstated. Understanding that they were, indeed, discussing photography as â€Å"art† spoke directly of the philosophy of Stieglitz, a philosophy that served as the driving force of his life’s work. The collection brought the symposium into perspective, confi rming the power and beauty of Stieglitz’s photography, as it reinvestigated his reputation. The exquisite print quality and the inclusion of various versions of well-known photographs expanded the viewer’s experience of the work. A beautiful photogravure print on tissue of The Steerage (1915) is unparalleled in its beauty and the extensive collection of the â€Å"Equivalens† (1923-31) series brings to mind the collected haystacks of Claude Monet. The collection spans Stieglitz’s career, offering the viewer an unprecedented opportunity to contemplate his development as an artist while recognizing the Modernist elements of his work. Art Venues and Exhibition Halls, Suitable? Photography is entering into the commercial galleries and, most recently, the art business is a growing source of economic aid for the arts. The burgeoning crossover between the worlds of art and art is increasingly apparent – contemporary work is instill with concerns about gender identity, Since the beginning of the â€Å"contemporary age,† there have been countless major photography exhibitions at New York City’s Guggenheim Museum alone, as well as other international events that interweave art and art. The work and philosophy of Alfred Stieglitz is experiencing a: resurgence of interest. The recent retrospective of Stieglitzs gallery exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D. C. , â€Å"Modern Art and America: Alfred Stieglitz and his New York Galleries,† reinforces his pivotal position as the â€Å"champion† of American modern art. â€Å"But this view of Stieglitz, more myth than man, has always loomed above his personal work and consequently the work’s relevance to the development of a modern aesthetic. The question is– what does a century Told Modernist like Stieglitz have to say to a post postmodern America? † Researchers demonstrated that in contemporary Western contexts, allusions to other influences, i. e. Africa, through adornments and images such as those found in colonial-era postcards and photography still carry the weight of colonization and its aftermath. Hence some of the profound work in Hine and Sekula. The African body has for centuries been an object of much fascination to Western observers, who framed it to fuel many misconceptions about the continent’s peoples and cultures. The colonialist image of the â€Å"naked savage† long poisoned the relationship between African and Western peoples; the forced or coerced abandonment of indigenous attire in favor of Western dress was for much of the past two centuries a symbol of the â€Å"civilizing† process. Throughout Africa today, deliberate revivals of â€Å"traditional† forms serve as symbols of political and cultural movements, often coexisting with Western styles that have been modified to suit local tastes. † Alfred Stieglitz, his Own Vision. Turn-of-the-century reactions to photography as an art form were vehemently negative. Because the photograph so closely resembled reality, photography was considered by many people, especially establishment painters and critics, to be a reportorial medium exclusively. Even the early Photo-Secessionist–the group of photographers headed by Stieglitz Stieglitz, committed to having the artistic merit of his work recognized—deliberately used soft-focus lenses, or darkroom tricks (including brushing or penciling the negative) to make their photographs look like paintings. In 1890, Stieglitz brought America a message. Photography, he said, is capable of more than factual recording. It can become a personal expression of one’s emotional reactions to life, a potential art. But it is not painting; any more than painting is sculpture. â€Å"He began a life-long fight for the recognition, particularly within artistic circles, of photography as an independent medium. He organized the few workers sympathetic to his ideal, first in the Society of Amateur Photographers and then in the Camera Club, whose magazine Camera Notes he founded and edited, making it the first periodical to respect fine photography. † One enduring feature of photography is its identification with art. In a recent analysis of photography, artists contrasted ‘glamour’ with ‘sophistication’. This format found that in the art press photography was described as youthful, dynamic and pleasure-seeking, On the other hand sophistication is seen as: mature, poised, restrained and introvert. It is no accident that they have coincided with the revival of figurative painting and the rise of conceptual art, of what is called photography as a high art forms, of video, alternative film practices, performance art – all of which have worked to challenge both the humanist notion of the artist as romantic individual ‘genius’ (and therefore of art as the expression of universal meaning by a transcendent human subject) and the modernist domination of two particular art forms, painting and sculpture. The Steerage (1907) The exhibition juxtaposes such iconic images as Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907). The show surveys photography’s thematic and artistic riches from the mid-1880s to the present, from one great era of technical and social change to another. Monumental innovations in the late 19 th century, such as dry-plate technology, hand-held cameras and halftone reproductions, greatly increased the medium’s applications and made it increasingl y integral to American life. All the while he has been photographing, using the camera as a means of personal expression. His prints are simple and direct: they are lyrics that penetrate beneath the surface. The Terminal is more than a record of a vanished scene; it is the essence of Winter in New York. In The Steerage (below) a moment is transfixed which is vitally important to all those travelers to a new land.

The Growth and Development of Civilization Essay

The Growth and Development of Civilization - Essay Example It must be noted that the significance of architecture, although perhaps disregarded by many analysts, is perhaps the most important single determinant of the representation of the 12th-century renaissance. This is due to the fact that architecture is one of the few aspects of human knowledge and representation that can instill and a level of awe in the subject and constrain/define behavior on the part of the societal stakeholder in a certain manner. Further, as a direct result of the increase in knowledge and the thirst for further understanding that could be gained with regards to the many subjects that came to be represented during the 12th century, the rise of the University was a further defining element through which this renaissance came to be reflected. Of all the information that is been put forward thus far, little emphasis has been placed with regards to the interpersonal levels of societal growth and evolution. Whereas architecture can instill a level of respect and pride in the society and the growth of science and technology that is able to represent such structures, these are ultimately impersonal aspects. By much the same token, the University experience and the acquisition of knowledge is something that, although it directly benefits society and the individual, is not necessarily engaged with interpersonal interaction nor promote a broader societal consciousness. However, as is definitively represented within the legends of King Arthur, an emphasis upon the codes of chivalry, romance, and courtly love is a prime element for the manner in which these stories are told and understood by the reader (Rydstrà ¸m-Poulsen 799). The ultimate significance of the institution of chivalry and the process of courtly love was not only as a means of providing a formalized structure through which interpersonal relations could take place.