Frankenstein and Science

Chapter 1 Introduction Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall When Evelyn Fox Keller wrote that ‘Frankenstein is a story first and foremost about the consequences of male ambitions to co-opt the procreative function’, she took for granted an interpretive consensus amongst late twentieth-century critical approaches to the novel. Whilst the themes had been revealed as ‘considerably more complex than we had earlier thought’, Fox Keller concludes ‘the major point remains quite simple’. The consensus might be characterised a little more broadly than this – as a view that the novel is about masculinity and scientific hubris – and has led to an enduring use of the title as a byword for the dangerous potential of the scientific over-reacher: It was in this vein that Isaac Asimov coined the term ‘the Frankenstein complex’ to describe the theme of his robot stories in the 1940s, and The Frankenstein Syndrome is the title for a colle ction of essays on genetic engineering published in 1995. This collection takes a very different approach to the novel, seeking to reopen the question of how science and scientific ambition are portrayed in the story by offering a range of historical perspectives, based on detailed accounts of areas of scientific knowledge that are relevant to it. Frankenstein was published in 1818, in a cultural and political climate fraught with contrary ideals. The editors of this collection take it for granted that a successful work of literature is always overdetermined and that it is neither possible nor desirable to formulate a precise and conclusive interpretation of any work of fiction. The wealth of debates and controversies that were going on at the time when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein make it an urgent task to provide a space in which these discourses can be heard once again. If we listen carefully for the contextual arguments into which the assessment of the benefits and dangers of a new discovery were embedded, we may have to relinquish the assumption (implicit in Fox Keller’s statement and explicit in the majority of late twentieth-century interpretations) that this is a novel with an anti-Promethean message. In doing so, we can gain a more complex understanding of the cross-fertilisations between radical politics and the dramas of scientific exploration. Of course, not every scientist subscribed to radical politics. But considering that most scientists investigating completely new areas of interest had very little sense of where their discoveries would lead them, questions about their consequences were uppermost in people’s minds. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, utopian thinking about the vast social benefits made possible by scientific innovation was a powerful force for good. Advances in 2 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall anatomy, chemistry, electricity, engineering and the exploration sciences were saving lives and creating vast new economic possibilities, besides giving rise to some of the darker forms of human exploitation associated with the industrial revolution. An intelligent appraisal of these consequences required the kind of analytical vision that strikes us in Frankenstein. The end of the eighteenth century is a turning point often called a ‘second scientific revolution’, which Patricia Fara sees as characterized by new levels of confidence in the commercial and social impact of scientific research. 3 One of the definitive influences on this cultural change was Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802). Darwin was a figure larger than life: a pragmatist and idealist, a prolific writer of exuberant verse, a polymathic inventor and a medical practitioner with an uninhibited brief to experiment on his patients. As co-founder and ‘recruiting sergeant’ for the Lunar Society from the 1760s, he presided over the most formidable powerhouse of scientific talent in eighteenth-century England. 4 Members included Josiah Wedgewood (1730–95), Mathew Boulton (1728–1809), Joseph Priestley (1733– 1804) and James Watt (1736–1819). They made breakthrough discoveries in steam power, chemical manufacture, optics, geology and electricity. 5 The driving enthusiasms for their world came from the prospect of its immediate application in industry and commerce. If steam power was the most profitable field of research in terms of its immediate industrial impact, electricity was revolutionary in a more comprehensive and spectacular way. It was electricity that epitomized the Promethean spirit of the age and the American statesman and inventor Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) who ‘snatched the lightning from the heavens and the scepter from tyrants’, and came to symbolize all that was most inspiring about it. In a now famous letter written in 1787 and addressed simply to ‘Doctor Franklin, America’, Erasmus Darwin addressed him as ‘the greatest Statesman of the present, or perhaps of any century, who spread the happy contagion of Liberty among his countrymen; and †¦ delivered them from the house of bondage, and the scourge of oppression’. 6 The declamatory verve of this new scientific rhetoric inspired future generations. Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin (1756–1836), admired Erasmus Darwin and shared his ideals. Her mother Mary Wollstonecraft (1759– 97), an incisive social analyst with a passion for the advancement of knowledge, developed her own style of Promethean statement in praising the revolutionary quest for a new order of intellectual life: But the irresistible energy of moral and political sentiments of half a century, at last kindled into a glaze the illuminating rays of truth, which, throwing new light on the mental powers of man, and giving fresh spring to his reasoning faculties, completely 7 undermined the strong holds of priestcraft and hypocrisy. Introduction 3 Darwin’s verses were a strong influence on the early writings of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822), but the Shelleys and their circle were of a new generation who had to come to terms with the more horrific legacies of revolution in France, and with the reign of virulent backlash politics in England. The backlash began violently, with the gathering of ‘Church and King’ mobs who targeted those associated with all forms of new knowledge and ideas. Joseph Priestley was the subject of a campaign of public vilification, which culminated in the trashing of his laboratory in July 1791, on the second anniversary of the storming of the Bastille. The intellectual climate in 1818, when Frankenstein was published, was fraught with political agendas and Mary Shelley’s place in it needs to be understood in relation to the allegiance of ideals and principles that bound her to her parents (to whom the novel is dedicated) and to a peer group in which the charismatic influence of Shelley and Byron were paramount. A reading of the novel as simply anti-Promethean, which has been fashionable through most of the twentieth century and especially through the influence of some feminist critics in the 1980s and 90s, fails to take account of the implications of anti-Promethean views for someone in Mary Shelley’s cultural circumstances, and of many of her own overt pronouncements. To a feminist in Wollstonecraft’s era, the idea that bold discovery and the quest for enhanced human power was against the interests of women would have been anathema. In the Romantic period, Prometheus was the hero of all those who sought liberation from oppression. In many respects, Frankenstein criticizes an attitude towards knowledge that came to be identified with the Enlightenment. Subsequent views have either eulogized its grand achievements or condemned its megalomaniac aspirations. Neither of these approaches has shed light on the broad palette of different approaches to the study of nature. In order to understand the full complexity of the period we, therefore, need to distance ourselves from a simplistic retrospective view that the Enlightenment was a period with a homogenous agenda about technological progress and the advancement of knowledge. The eighteenth century was no doubt dominated by monolithic movements that revised and modernised philosophical theories at the same time as planting the seed for the shared values of a democratic and prosperous society liberated from the shackles of superstition. Scholars like Ian Hunter have convincingly argued for the existence of multiple Enlightenments, whose agendas emerged from strongly conflicting ideas about the nature and purpose of human existence as individuals and members of society. The secularising influences of the age of Enlightenment tend to be upheld as key achievements. Although it is fair to say that the period radically curbed the Church’s direct influence on civic matters, the secularisation of public administration was unable to undermine the Christian foundation of European society. It is true that some members of the Enlightened intelligentsia embraced atheistic principles, but this was by no means a general development. So, it is 4 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall ossible to subdivide the multiple Enlightenments into the category of the empirical rationalists, on the one hand, and those who explore arcane and occult matters, on the other. Here it has to be noted that it is a response to the weakening of the power of the Church that lay investigators could encroach on its traditional prerogatives when they examined aspects of psyche, mind and consciousness and, by doing so, rejected the idea that those parts of the human being which were traditionally described by the term ‘soul’ should be excluded from empirical, physiological analysis. Importantly, though, science bridges the divide between sober empiricism and attempts to subject metaphysical issues to the scrutinising eyes of logical analysis. The hybrids between rationality and metaphysical speculation, called into existence by the crossovers between these two types of science, are a fertile backdrop to Victor Frankenstein’s introduction to the world of science. The locations of Frankenstein have been chosen with utmost care. Victor’s birthplace in Geneva positions him in the stronghold of Calvinism. At the same time, it alludes to the fact that Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–78) returned to this small republic on Lake Geneva as a refuge from the vices of France. Another significant setting for the formation of Victor’s mind is Ingolstadt, a Bavarian town with a recently founded university (1759) that adopted progressive principles and aimed to achieve social reform. Ingolstadt became famous throughout Europe in the early 1780s for a particular brand of Enlightenment: the order of the Illuminati who describe themselves simply by the Latin word for Enlightenment. It is true that Frankenstein does not contain any direct references to the Illuminism, or its founder Adam Weishaupt (1748–1811), but it is telling that the dates of Walton’s letters to his sister, ‘17—’, refer its action back to an anonymous time of the eighteenth century. It therefore seems to be fair to conclude that the pursuit of superhuman objectives must be located in the decade before the French Revolution, when all of Europe was intoxicated with a heady ferment of reformatory ideas and utopian visions. Weishaupt had been educated as a Jesuit but rejected this rigid form of Catholicism and became the first layman to be appointed for the chair of canon law at the University of Ingolstadt (1773). The contribution to the intellectual life of his university, though, was not sufficient for him. Sharing Victor Frankenstein’s immense craving to better the lot of mankind, he embarked on negotiations with the Freemasons. His unyielding temper rendered such a rapprochement difficult, so that he founded a new secret society, which was, however, modelled on this society. The joint efforts between Weishaupt and Adolf von Knigge (1752–96) guaranteed the enormous success of the new society between 1780 and 1782. Disagreement between the two leaders, along with public scandals and denunciations that the society was aiming for political sedition rather than the advancement of human welfare and scientific knowledge, caused serious suspicions. In 1787, the Bavarian government went so far as to forbid it under penalty of death. Introduction 5 The stated goals of the society of the Illuminati were to improve society through the cultivation of sensibility and the practice of scientific research. These objectives were shared by most contemporary intellectuals and it, therefore, attracted the leading lights of German intelligentsia, including Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832), Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744–1803) and Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811). They joined as a means of dedicating themselves to an organised study and cultivation of human nature. The initiatory oath of new members of the order revolves around humanitarian principles: ‘I profess, and also pledge, that I will eagerly grasp every opportunity of serving humankind, will improve my knowledge and willpower, and will make generally available my useful recognitions, in so far as the welfare and statutes of this particular society will demand it of me. ’10 While pursuing similar goals as the philosophes, a group of French intellectuals dedicated themselves to the compilation of comprehensive information about the arts and the sciences to be collected in the one reference work of the Encyclopedie (1751–72). 1 The group of intellectuals around Denis Diderot (1713–84) and Jean D’Alembert (1717–83) aimed to spread knowledge as a means of breaking down privileges and abuses by church and nobility, which is why they advocated a strictly empiricist approach to science. While Weishaupt admired these spokespeople for reason and rationali ty, his own society embedded the practice of rationality and benevolence in an atmosphere of ritual. He also combined his commitment to pioneering scientific exploration with the exploration of the more esoteric borderlines between material and non-material phenomena. The emotional dimension to his practice of reason and rationality, for instance, consisted of the adoption of classical names for all members of the society. Weishaupt called himself Spartacus and Knigge was Philo. Weishaupt’s taste for secrecy led him to refer even to places by pseudonyms, ‘Athens’, for instance, standing for Munich and ‘Thessalonica’ for Mannheim. The veil of mystery also provided a cover for some serious agitations for the ‘elaboration and propagation of a new popular religion and †¦ the gradual establishment of a universal democratic republic’. 12 It was also a fertile environment for the observation of phenomena of psyche and soul. Although Weishaupt and Knigge are not directly recognisable in Shelley’s imaginary depiction of Ingolstadt, there are some revealing links between the heyday of Illuminism and the novel’s scientific culture. A striking coincidence is that the jubilant vision of scientific progress expressed by Professors Krempe and Waldheim positions them in the decade of the 1780s, which was also the time when Antoine de Lavoisier (1743–94) ousted the long-established belief that combustion was a process that released phlogiston – a colourless, tasteless and weightless substance believed to be present in every object as a latent principle waiting to be released. Lavoisier demonstrated the inconsistencies of the phlogiston theory in 1783 and published his own theories in 1789, demonstrating that conservation of mass is a fundamental principle not just in mechanical physics but also in chemistry. Lavoisier, importantly, proved the viability of quantitative 6 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall approaches to chemical processes, including respiration and other vital processes of the human body. 13 In Frankenstein the clash between the old and the new theories is pitched as a contrast between the ‘modern masters’ and ld alchemists. 14 After Krempe’s scornful response to Victor’s interest in their ‘exploded systems’ (29), the benevolent Waldman explains that ‘these were men to whose indefatigable zeal modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of knowledge’ (31). The key figures in the alchemical tradition mentioned in the novel – Albertus Magnus (c. 1206–80), Cor nelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535), and Paracelsus (Theophrastus von Hohenheim, 1493–1541) – do not simply feature as scholars who made groundbreaking contributions to the history of science. Once he has lost his fascination for the old alchemists, Victor Frankenstein rationalises his attraction to their ideas as a craving for ‘boundless grandeur’ (30). Prior to studying at Ingolstadt, he describes his early quests for the ‘philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life’, and goes on to flesh out the moment of success: ‘what glory would attend the discovery, if I could banish disease from the human frame, and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death’ (23). If he has really studied the writings of these authors, he must have a more complex understanding of the symbolic qualities of key alchemical concepts, like the philosopher’s stone. The text of the novel is quiet about whether he ever pondered the capacity of this most cherished of substances to enable a mystic union between self and world. We can, therefore, only speculate if he was initially attracted to the authors of alchemical works because they embraced a holistic view of nature, which foregrounded strong resemblances between physical and metaphysical phenomena. It should also be noted that many scholars who broadly belong in the alchemical tradition explored the borderlines between mind and matter. Striking investigations of topics as diverse as social deviance, the origin of the Devil, the true skills of magicians, black and white magic, witchcraft, and the power of poisons and remedies are collected in the work of Johann Weyer, Agrippa’s most prominent disciple. 5 If stripped of its religious-demonic framework, Weyer’s insight into the psychology of delusions, obsessions, sexual deviance, as well as a whole range of ailments that would come to be classified as nervous diseases during the Romantic period, is truly remarkable. It, therefore, is no surprise that Romantic writers had a certain penchant for the works of the old alchemists. Mary Shelley’s father, William Godwin, himself embarked on a book-length study entitled Lives of the Necromancers (1834),16 in which he assessed their true achievements in a strictly sec ular light. As a stolid rationalist, Godwin must have wanted to cool his period’s enthusiasm for what he would have described as irrational obfuscation. Interest in the principles of life – the nervous system, the psyche and the soul – however, provides a connection between Weishaupt’s Illuminati, the ‘modern masters’ and the old alchemists. But as is illustrated by the fact that Weishaupt fell into general disgrace while Lavoisier came to be hailed as the founder of modern chemistry, the line between respectable pursuits and politically and otherwise Introduction 7 suspect explorations of the non-material aspects of human existence was easily crossed. 17 Nowhere was this boundary more richly confused than in the dramas of intellectual adventure conceived by Coleridge, Goethe, Shelley, Byron and other leading poets of the Romantic movement, in whose imaginative company Mary Shelley’s story was conceived. * There were strong elements of the uncanny about many of the scientific experiments that caught the public imagination during the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The legacy of Luigi Galvani (1737–98) was continued through the work of his nephew Giovanni Aldini (1762–1834), who in 1803 experimented on the corpse of a criminal recently executed at Newgate, to macabre effect. Electrical charges caused one eye to open, the legs to jolt and the hand to raise itself as if in greeting. In the same year, Aldini published a series of descriptions of his experiments, including some work on severed heads: The first of these decapitated criminals being conveyed to the apartment provided for my experiments, in the neighborhood of the place of execution, the head was first subjected to the Galvanic action. For this purpose I had constructed a pile consisting of a hundred pieces of silver and zinc. Having moistened the inside of the ears with salt water, I formed an arc with two metallic wires, which, proceeding from the two ears, were applied, one to the summit and the other to the bottom of the pile. When this communication was established, I observed strong contractions in the muscles of the face, which were contorted in so irregular a manner that they exhibited the appearance of the most horrid grimaces. The action of the eye-lids was exceedingly striking, 18 though less sensible in the human head than in that of an ox. But for the precision of its laboratory detail, this reads not unlike a scene from Mary Shelley’s novel. At the other end of the vitalist spectrum from the prospect of reanimation was that of spontaneous generation. In the same year as Aldini was engaging in his grisly, jaw-dropping work at the gallows, Erasmus Darwin’s imaginings were all light and life: And quick contraction with ethereal flame Lights into life the fibre-woven frame – Hence without parent by spontaneous birth Rise the first specks of animated earth. 19 The most notorious experiments in spontaneous generation were those conducted by Andrew Crosse (1784–1855) at his house in the Quantock hills in 1836, long after the publication of Frankenstein, but a diary entry by Mary Shelley indicates that she and Percy Bysshe Shelley attended one of Crosse’s early lectures in London on December 28, 1814. Crosse spoke and gave demonstrations on the topic 8 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall of ‘electricity and the elements’, describing in detail his methods of directing lightning currents in order to employ their power to generate light and motion. 0 The early nineteenth century was a time when the magic and mystique of science was crossing paths with an accelerating succession of immediately useful discoveries, and it was impossible to determine which of a range of mind-boggling prospects might become an actuality. The industrial revolution was in its most intensive phase. Human mobility was accelerated beyond all prev ious imagining, and concepts of geographic distance were correspondingly transformed. Richard Trevithick (1771–1833) built the first passenger steam carriage in 1801 and his steam locomotives were revolutionizing freight transport from 1804. In 1807 the first steamship passenger service to America was introduced. In 1816 the Leeds-Liverpool canal was completed. Work and productivity were likewise accelerated, with doubleedged consequences, as the bulk of manufactured goods grew exponentially, but so did the burden on those whose lot it was to operate the ‘dark satanic mills’. 1 A succession of riots and a growing movement of organized protest were features of this timespan, leading up to the Peterloo massacre in Manchester in early 1819. William Wordsworth, reflecting in 1814 on the transformations he was witnessing, tried to express both sides of the account: I grieve, when on the darker side Of this great change I look; and there behold Such outrage done to nature as compels The indignant power to justify herself; Yea, to avenge her violated righ ts, For England’s bane. And et I do exult, Casting reserve away, exult to see An intellectual mastery exercised O’er the blind elements; a purpose given, A perseverance fed; almost a soul Imparted – to brute matter. I rejoice, Measuring the force of those gigantic powers That, by the thinking mind, have been compelled To serve the will of feeble-bodied man. 22 Mary Shelley was part of the Romantic movement, socially and intellectually, and her view of science was accordingly influenced by the heightened perspectives of her contemporaries. Her protagonist, Victor Frankenstein, is a figure torn between the two kinds of vision expressed here by Wordsworth, and there are no easy conclusions to be reached about the inherent values and dangers of his enterprise. * Introduction 9 The main objective of this collection of essays is to bring to life the challenges and complexities of science as they are reflected in the novel. We have, therefore, brought together contributors who can offer readings of Frankenstein in light of the most relevant areas of the period’s scientific knowledge. Rather than focussing exclusively on the individual fields of enquiry which were to establish themselves as the core disciplines of modern science, this book is based on a broader understanding of science. On the one hand, it reminds the modern reader of the controversial aura of, for example, early studies in electricity, and on the other hand, offers a glimpse of the fluid boundaries between pioneering explorations of nervous diseases and esoteric speculations about the existence of analogical resemblances between mind and matter. The scientific advances of the Romantic period could not have been as farreaching and rapid without related efforts to disseminate the new knowledge amongst a wide spectrum of interested parties. Women and children, in particular, became a crucial target audience for the numerous publishers attempting to profit from the ever-rising interest in inventions and new insight into the secret workings of nature. Publications about the people, animals, plants and landscapes encountered by naval expeditions were a similarly popular topic of interest. Owing to William Godwin’s own involvement in the market of scientific popularisation, Mary Shelley learnt about her period’s technological advancements and scientific theories from her earliest years. Much of the knowledge she acquired as an avid young reader with an early penchant for writing was filtered through to her via scientific popularisations and textual hybrids between fact and fiction. Patricia Fara opens this collection of essays with an overview of scientific publications written for a lay audience and available during Mary Shelley’s formative childhood years. Considering that early nineteenth-century women could still only really enter the history of science as readers, illustrators and translators, Ludvig Holberg’s novel about Niels Klim’s journey through a subterranean world (1742) encouraged its female readers to feel at home in the spaces between fact and fiction. Holberg’s novel, along with Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1725), which demonstrated a similar preoccupation with contemporary science, is a revealing early fantasy about the imaginary exploration of alien spaces, mingled with an analysis of double standards and the social objectives behind scientific ventures. Eighteenth-century novels about scientific innovation are, therefore, shown to provide an important foil for Mary Shelley’s imaginative portrayal of a scientific hypothesis. The next chapter, written by Judith Barbour, offers detailed insight into the precise nature of the knowledge disseminated hrough the Juvenile Library? a serialised encyclopaedia published by William Godwin after 1807. Not surprisingly, the household of a writer, publisher and bookseller teemed with intellectual debates about the rationale and implications of new systems of scientific categorisation. Such discussions enthusiastically explored the Linnean order of plants al ong with other attempts to revise the long-established ‘great chain of being’, a rigid hierarchy that assigned a place to all living beings and embraced beings as diverse as mites and slugs, on the one hand, and God and his angelic 0 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall vassals, on the other. 23 Attracting young men with radical sentiments or otherwise unconventional attitudes, Godwin’s home was also a hub for discussions about the social changes made possible by the secular perspective of contemporary science, disencumbered by the crippling notions of mainstream morality. Controversies about mankind’s purpose were considered in light of, for instance, Georges Buffon’s (1707–88) accounts of the resemblances between the human physical frame and that of apes and other primates. The young Mary was, therefore, immersed into a heady intellectual climate that encouraged her to speculate about the reforming potentials of contemporary science. Percy Bysshe Shelley, an influential figure in her father’s circle of friends, was intrigued by the roaming imagination of the young Mary – so much so that the couple decided to elope in 1814. The early dialogues between the precocious child and the already established writer were to grow ever more intensive and, as Barbour argues, inspired the dramatic momentum required for transforming Mary’s fantasy about an artificially created being into a speculative drama about the consequences of contemporary science. In the late eighteenth century, the understanding and experience of space began to change in response to the accumulation of a vast bulk of new information about the geography of far-flung places. In parallel with this development, unprecedented efforts to grasp the secrets of the human mind, psyche and soul probed into the inner spaces of human existence. It goes without saying that the attempt to map and chart the phenomena of the mind could not follow equally objective principles. As Christa Knellwolf’s chapter explains, the inability to draw an objective map made it difficult to proceed. However, it also provided scope for imagining a vastness of imaginary space that reflects the minute infinities revealed by contemporary microscopes. At issue, however, are not the microscopic dimensions that will be the concern of twentieth-century microbiology, but the limitless nature of consciousness and imagination. The parallels between inner and outer space bears special salience for the setting of Frankenstein: The immense distances traversed, particularly in its narrative frame, position the novel’s eponymous hero in both an emotional and a geographic desert. The impossible spaces of the narrative and physical setting of the story, then, raise questions about whether the uncompromising realisation of ideals and absolutes is achievable for an ordinary human being. Contemporary debates on the sanctity of human life are a key concern of Frankenstein. Anita Guerrini’s chapter argues that early nineteenth-century debates about vivisection were motivated not only by the nascent sensitivity towards the sufferings of animals, but also responded to long-standing, religiously motivated attempts to ban experiments that pried into the mysteries of life – human and animal. The discovery and description of the nervous system, however, critically depended on the possibility of observing the physical locations of pain. Like Frankenstein himself, prominent scientists in the field found it difficult to cope with the gruesome aspects of vivisection and were unsure about whether they had a right to proceed with their research. Audiences were still eager to attend public Introduction 11 performances in anatomy but antivivisection debates shed important light on the contested public perception of anatomical-medical experimenters. Francois Magendie (1783–1855) – a French anatomist who regularly performed public dissections in order to demonstrate the body’s sensory functions – as a case in point, who illustrates a growing discomfort with the scientists’ wish to spy ever more deeply into the borderlines between life and death. So a further parallel between the real and fictional scientist emerges as an urgent concern of the novel, consisting of the fact that neither the real nor fictional scientist were horrified by the gruesome environment of the charnel house or suffici ently awed by the idea that a dead human body was the receptacle of a recently departed soul. Frankenstein’s creature is frequently referred to as a monster. While this trite stereotype fails to grasp the problems implicit in contemporary fantasies about the perfectibility of the human body and mind, it also ignores the fact that the monster posed enormous problems for the taxonomies of comparative anatomy, which is why teratology – the scientific explanation of the existence of monsters – emerged as an influential branch of contemporary science. Diverging significantly from the characteristics identified by received definitions of a particular species, Melinda Cooper argues that the nature and purpose of these alternative life-forms posed endless problems and questions. Were they simple variants of the normal representatives of a species, were they a sign that the health of a species had been undermined, or were they indications of special transformations waiting to manifest themselves in the imminent future? Such questions need to be raised in regard to Frankenstein’s so-called monstrous creation. Their relevance is further documented by the fact that debates about the problematic role of the monster must have occurred between the Shelleys and their friend William Lawrence (1783–1867), a leading figure in the controversy over whether the origin of life was the consequence of materialist or vitalist principles. As regards the philosophical conception of Frankenstein’s creature, the context of teratological controversies opens up a new understanding of the novel’s analysis of the origin and meaning of different forms of life. Allan K. Hunter’s focus on an evolutionary perspective leads to a very different interpretative approach, exploring the social and political implications of the creature’s life course. The evolutionary theories at issue here are those of Erasmus Darwin, whose untempered admiration for the revolutionary energies surfacing in America and France fed into his hypothetical modelling of the future state of life forms. Hunter’s essay examines the claim that Enlightenment science enabled new view of the human condition that comes into existence between a distant past and a distant future, and whose endless transformations generate cultural anxieties about the approach of a new evolutionary phase. Seen through the lens of Darwin’s revolutionary optimism and Godwin’s doctrine of perfectability, the creature is endowed with preternatural learning abilities, extreme powers of endurance and a body size that makes him dominant in any physical contest. Yet he is a lso transformable into a force of chaos and a generator of cyclic violence. His creation as a manufacturing process is thus a provocative reflection on the culture of 12 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall manufacturing innovation in England at the time. These tensions and provocations are revealed in the novel’s controversial reception, which also illustrates a growing anxiety in England about the nebulous and excessive tendencies of French thought, compared to English pragmatism. With our taken-for-granted attitude towards electricity, it is a challenge for twenty-first-century readers of Frankenstein to appreciate the imaginative potency of electrical researches in the Enlightenment period. Mary Shelley’s novel capitalizes on the dramatic cultural and psychological impact of electrical discovery as well as its immediately spectacular manifestations. Amongst her contemporaries, electricity was regarded as a life science or, more than that, as the science of life itself. Ian Jackson emphasizes that the most popular and spectacular forms of electrical experiment involved human and animal bodies. Such experiments promised to unlock forces of unlimited potential that might change the destiny of the species, effecting a transformation of human being in metaphysical as well as material terms. When unseen electrical forces were made to cause visible objects and bodies to move, or emit sparks, or to attract other objects towards them, this created a meeting point between the perceptual frameworks of science and animism. Through Galvanic experiments in which the corpses of recent gallows victims were made to dance, these forces are specifically linked with the fantasy of reanimation. The agonies of conscience experienced by Victor Frankenstein also reflect the intensity of debates surrounding researches into electricity which, from an orthodox religious point of view, were dangerously impious, because to reveal those things in creation that were hidden from the human senses was to transgress divine intention. If the Creator had wanted them to be known, He would have made them evident in the first place. Against this view, there was the Newtonian defence that the study of nature, with the purpose of revealing the workings of God to man, is essentially pious because it enables fuller human admiration of divine perfection. The unashamed atheism of the Shelley circle, and their embrace of Prometheus as the greatest of mythical heroes, prompted a move away from defensiveness to the lyrical celebration of bold discovery. However, Jackson suggests that in Frankenstein, Mary Shelley is offering a more troubled view of scientific aspiration. Joan Kirkby’s analysis of the spiritualist ideas underpinning the story of Victor Frankenstein brings up the question of what was regarded as a ‘science’ in the early nineteenth century. Mesmerism combined elements from the knowledge domains of astronomy, electricity and magnetism, with interpretative frameworks belonging to the practices of clairvoyance and spiritualism. Major philosophical thinkers such as Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788– 1860) interested themselves in the presence of spirits, and many of the works of eighteenth-century scientific writers include serious commentary on the permeability of the boundary between life and death. Leading spiritualists of this time, as Kirkby points out, were also leading scientists. Emanuel Swedenborg Introduction 13 (1688–1772) was led by his sophisticated interests in anatomy and the composition of matter to enquire into the specific location of the connecting point between body and soul. In this light, the anatomical work of Frankenstein, driven by an impassioned commitment to dismantling the boundary between life and death, takes on heightened implications. The themes of the novel can also be seen as closely linked with those of Percy Shelley’s major poems, in which a view of matter itself as spirit is xpounded with powerful conviction. The culture of collecting was one of the most significant forms of public engagement with the natural sciences in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. As Christine Cheater observes, some of the tensions played out in the novel are reflections of larger cultural tensions exemplified in the design and management of collections. Victor Frankenstein’s adventures take him from the extremes of conf inement, working day and night in his domestic laboratory, to some of the wildest and most remote landscapes of the world. Similarly, the quest for scientific trophies could lead to travels around the globe but also to the experience of confinement amongst the obsessive and personalised clutter of the cabinet of curiosities. There were tensions, too, between the curiosity driven projects of the private collectors or virtuosi and the growing commitment to expertise and professional specialization, with its attendant demands for greater exclusivity in the management and accessibility of collections. Cheater compares the careers of Ashton Lever (1729–88) and John Gould (1804–81) as exemplars of this transition and the tragic personal costs it sometimes entailed, suggesting that the disastrous conclusion of Victor Frankenstein’s enterprise shares some symptomatic elements. Scientific fictions about the existence of different forms of life did not begin with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Stories embraced in long-standing speculations about whether there are other worlds and, if so, what their inhabitants might look like, date back at least to Bernard le Bovier de Fontelle’s (1657–1757) scientific popularisation of Cartesianism. While early fantasies about the appearance of beings living outside or beneath the surface of the earth demonstrate little fear about the implications for their own world, Mary Shelley’s novel adds a decisively worrying twist to the theme. Sharing the planet with another species that is their own equivalent (or even superior) may be a prospect for which human nature is not ready, though in her later novel The Last Man, Shelley envisaged a world evacuated of the human species as a place of profound metaphysical emptiness. This work points towards a tradition of bleaker fictional renditions of the future. By the end of the nineteenth century, apocalyptic fantasies dominated the imagination of writers, such as H. G. Wells, disillusioned about the promises of science and their period’s irresponsible treatment of natural resources. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often read as a work that stands at the beginning of such dark visions about the barbarities resulting from a science that is used in the service of megalomaniacs wishing to control the world rather than as a tool for the spread of Enlightenment ideas and values. It is time to reengage with the novel as a work 14 Christa Knellwolf and Jane Goodall that is filled with the energies of scientific aspiration, as well as misgivings about human failure to realise it. Notes 1 Evelyn Fox Keller, Secrets of Life, Secrets of Death: Essays on Language, Gender and Science (London: Routledge, 1992), p. 49. Anne K. Mellor probably offers the most fully developed of such readings in Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters (London: Routledge, 1988). See Isaac Asimov, ‘Robots, computers and fear’, Introduction to Machines That Think (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983), p. 1; Bernard E. Rollin, ed. The Frankenstein Syndrome: Ethical and Social Issues in the Genetic Engineering of Animals (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995). Patricia Fara, An Entertainment for Angels (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2002), p. 22. Desmond King-Hele, Doctor of Revolution: The Life and Genius of Erasmus Darwin (London: Faber & Faber, 1977). Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future, 1730–1810 (London: Faber & Faber, 2002). Erasmus Darwin, letter to Benjamin Franklin, 29 May 1787 in American Philosophical Society collection of Franklin Papers XXXV, 70; quoted in King-Hele (London: Faber & Faber, 1977), p. 79. Mary Wollstonecraft, An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution, in Mary Wollstonecraft, Political Writings, ed. Janet Todd (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1994), p. 292. Ian Hunter, Rival Enlightenments: Civil and Metaphysical Philosophy in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2001). For a historical background of eighteenth-century freemasonry, see Margaret Jacob, Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1991). For a etailed historical analysis of Illuminism, see Richard van Dulmen, Der Geheimbund der Illuminaten: Darstellung, Analyse, Dokumentation, trans. Christa Knellwolf (Stuttgart: F. Frommann, 1975), p. 159. Denis Diderot and Jean Dâ₠¬â„¢Alembert Le Rond, eds, L’Encyclopedie, ou Dictionnaire raisonne des art et des sciences (Paris: Le Breton, 1751–72). For a discussion of the cultural context and objectives of the philosophes, see David Garrioch, ‘The party of the Philosophes’, in The Enlightenment World, eds Martin Fitzpartick, Peter Jones, Christa Knellwolf and Iain McCalman (London: Routledge, 2004), pp. 26–41. Compare the entry for ‘Illuminati’ in the Catholic Encyclopaedia online: [accessed 10 October 2007]. Antoine Lavoisier, Traite elementaire de chimie, presente dans un ordre nouveau et d'apres les decouvertes modernes, 2 vols (Paris: Chez Cuchet, 1789; repr. Bruxelles: Cultures et Civilisations, 1965). Mary Shelley, Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus: The 1818 Text (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993), p. 30. All further references are from this text and are cited parenthetically. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Introduction 15 5 Johann Weyer, De praestigii s daemonum, trans. John Shea, in Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the Renaissance (Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1991 [1583]). 16 For the details of Godwin’s study, see Lives of the Necromancers: or, An Account of the Most Eminent Persons in Successive Ages, Who Have Claimed for Themselves, or to Whom Has Been Imputed by Others, the Exercise of Magical Power (London: Frederick J. Mason, 1834). 17 Also compare Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1968); and Auguste Viatte, Les sources occultes du romanticism, illuminism, theosophie, 1770–1820 (Paris: Champion, 1965). 18 John [Giovanni] Aldini, ‘An account of the late improvements in galvanism, with a series of curious and interesting experiments performed before the commissioners of the French National Institute, and repeated lately in the anatomical theaters of London’ (London: 1803). Extracts from this document available online at [accessed 10 October 2007]. 19 Erasmus Darwin, The Temple of Nature (London: J. Johnson, 1803), Canto II, iv, lines 246–51. 20 Peter Haining, The Man Who Was Frankenstein (London: Frederick Muller, 1979), pp. 56–63. 21 William Blake, Jerusalem; quoted from Literature Online [accessed 10 October 2007]. 22 William Wordsworth, The Excursion, Book 8, pp. 243 and 244; quoted from Literature Online [accessed 10 October 2007]. 23 For a historical overview of the concept, see A. O. Lovejoy, The Great Chain of Being: A Study of the History of an Idea (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1948).

Natural Disasters Essay

There is certain order in the world. The planets move in their orbit around the sun. The disasters which occur naturally are known as natural disasters. There are infinite natural disasters. Some of them are landslides, floods and volcanic eruptions. By taking the example of planets orbiting around the sun, the question rises that how do these devastating disasters occur? Floods occur in those areas which are closer to seas. Due to heavy rain, the sea water increases and spills out over the area with speed and destroying everything. Flash floods are another example of floods which occur suddenly. All the land and fertile soil is destroyed. Landslides occur in mountains. They occur by a number of reasons in which earthquake is the main reason. It causes the mountainous slopes to weaken the saturated soil which run down the hill and kills every thing in the way. It blocks the way for people to travel. Volcanoes are fractured structured located on the crust which fall within the mass of the definition of planet. The earth allows hot lava to escape from the magma which is below the surface. This occurs when the earth’s crust breaks in some major parts. Erupting volcanoes cause many hazards such as volcanic ash, which is a threat to aircraft, mainly in jet engines where ash particles are melted due to high temperature. This destroys the turbine blades. After a lot of research it is still not known how volcanic eruption can be prevented. Researchers have stopped looking for prevention of volcanic eruptions.Man’s defences are too weak in comparison to nature. It is often expected that natural disasters are nature’s way of keeping human population in check. Are any of these disasters caused by man Man is not the cause of volacanic eruptions, but he plays a role in weather related disasters as floods. Everyone knows that weather is being affected by clearing of forests on earth. This is within our control. Hence some disasters can be controlled. All we have to do is to hope for a day to come when we could control all  natural disasters. Till then we have to remain at the mercy of nature.

Down Freedom's Main Line Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Down Freedom's Main Line - Essay Example This emphasis on love as the solution gave people an alternative to active resistance. FOR also established the International Fellowship Reconciliation in Holland. FOR also made Non-violent actions against segregation by organizing its supporters and mounting nonviolence campaigns. FOR mainly used Mahatma Gandhi's approaches (Williams, 48). Question 2 The actions of the Four Black Freshmen, also known as the Greensboro Four in 1960 organized sit-ins, which were basically nonviolent protests, against racial segregation. The main purpose of the sit-ins was to spark an increased sentiment at a time when US history was critical. The problem that blacks encountered was racial segregation in all places of the US life (education, job market and in social events). The February 1, 1960 (4:30 pm) underscores the extent of racial segregation that blacks underwent. In the incident, four black university students were not served food and beverage at Woolworth's 132 South Elm Street's store, simpl y because they were black. The white race and the police reacted to the sit-ins by being antagonistic. Question 3 The reason for the formation of the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which was formed in 1960 was to protest against racial, social injustices and even the Vietnam War. This group coordinated southern African American college students in nonviolent protests and activities against lunch counter-segregation which followed the Four Black Freshmen sit-ins. SNCC also campaigned to de-segregate voter registration in America, particularly, in the Deep South. All in all, it is accurate to state that the SNCC purposed to bring about social change and emancipation, through civil rights activism. According to Williams, the role of Ella Baker in the development of SNCC was that of helping form, and directing the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), under whose auspices, the SNCC operated and existed. Baker (together with Rev. James Lawson) also injected SNCC politics and administration with participatory democracy. Thus, Ella Baker's contributions to SNCC are indispensible (Williams, 61). Question 4 The reasons for the Freedom Rides were to challenge the non-enforcement of the US Supreme Court, on the cases, I. Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, 1946 and Boynton v. Virginia, 1960. In both cases, the US Supreme Court had ruled that the segregation of public buses were unconstitutional but the Southern states ignored the rulings as the federal government failed to make measures to ratify the rulings. The Freedom Riders sought to challenge this status quo by organizing and riding interstate buses in the South. Participants of the rides comprised mixed racial groups, as a way of discounting the local customs and laws which had solidified segregated sittings. Both the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the SNCC sponsored the Freedom Rides. The involvement of the Kennedy Administration in the Freedom Rides cannot also be discounted. Particularly, the Kennedy Administration got involved in the Freedom Rides after the 1961 Jim Crow South incident which deeply ashamed the administration. A mob set one of the Freedom Ride buses on fire, outside Anniston, Ala. the Kennedy Admin

Aaa Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Aaa - Essay Example now evident in our planet with the fiercer storm, frequent floods, warmer weather and other weather related calamities, that cost us lives and properties destroyed, his argument that global warming is already upon us is now accepted as a given fact. Krislov just reiterated the fact that â€Å"decades of climate research show that global warming is happening and human activity is a driving cause†. Gore’s arguments are already common to the modern audience because his arguments are also used by other environmentalist groups and advocates to increase the awareness of the public about climate change. In fact, many academe today include Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth as part of their curriculum to educate students about climate change. So it is no longer an argument for me. Gore’s discussion about the possibility of melting glaciers in Antarctica has already been documented in camera by National Geographic that would cause the atmosphere to warm and thus, presented compelling evidence that it happened and is still happening right before our very eyes. This similar demonstration of melting glacial sheets was also shown in the documentary An Inconvenient Truth except that we thought about it as an exaggeration. The carbon emission that started it all is also given and everybody knows about that already. In fact right now, governments are already conte mplating to make it an official policy with many people thinking that it is already long

Pharmacy as a Career Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Pharmacy as a Career - Essay Example Currently, I am pursuing a Bachelor in Biochemistry at Middle Tennessee State University. It has given me a strong grounding of medicinal chemistry and pharmaceuticals, pharmacy, pharmaceutics practice and pharmacology. My areas of interest include cell and molecular biology, medicines design, disease pathology, pharmacology and systematic physiology. Studying Biochemistry, I have learned that my strength lies in the field of pharmacy and pursuing a Doctor of Pharmacy degree will help fulfill my goals in the future. My educational background has assisted much in shaping my career goals and interests. I have worked as a CVS for two years as a Pharmacy Technician. While working in this position, I was responsible, diligent, paid attention to details pertaining to the job. I worked with a large number of patients with diverse health conditions and offered unwavering assistance in improving and maintaining their health. By offering assistance to patients I gained positive interpersonal a nd professional skills in dealing with patients. I am also a member of pre-script, a club of medical pre-professionals, where I enjoy meeting new people allowing me to acquire a greater understanding of their perception, theories, and ideas in the field of pharmacy. Undertaking self-development, work-based and research assignments, I will manage projects, which can contribute to the field of pharmacy, while working in the clinic or the laboratory environment. I am eagerly anticipating the challenge of a career involving lifelong learning.

Business culture Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Business culture - Research Paper Example USA and South Korea have maintained a very strong and supportive relation among each other since 1960. The multicultural relation among these two countries has started since the Korean War during the early fifties. During the Korean War US played a very vital role towards South Korea to give them the financial and political support towards the establishment of new developed nation. Since then South Korea has grown fast and it has reduced its dependency upon the United States of America. United States is one of the largest oversees trading partners of South Korea, In 1998 due to the dictatorship of the ruling party United Democratic Front and Combined Force Command (CFC), the relation among US and South Korea has faced some frictions which made South Korea to divert their way from US. However, in 2007 June South Korea and United States of America have signed a free trade agreement (FTA) which helped them to sustain the positive trade relation among the two countries. Business relation has become very strong among these two countries but if the focus is given thoroughly towards the nature of doing business and the socio-cultural differences between these two countries then, it can be seen that, the way of doing business in each of these countries are totally different. It is very important to understand the socio-economic structure of any country to do business or to set up a new industry. South Korea’s business culture is very much different than the US. South Korea is the fourth largest developed economy among the Asian countries, but it would be a big mistake to presume what worked for Japan, China or any other Asian Countries are same for South Korea. In other hand United Sates of American (USA) is a mixture of many races, cultures and religions, it is the best known cosmopolitan country in the world. The free mind and mixed cultural balance have made USA the powerful business

Corporate Social Responsibility Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 2

Corporate Social Responsibility - Essay Example As revealed, Bill Gates’ philanthropic thrusts extends to his applying concepts of CSR in his organizations; including the establishment of Bill & Melinda Gates’ Foundation. On the contrary, Steve Jobs’ main thrust was focused on coming up with innovative ideas on Apple’s products and little emphasis in applying CSR was exemplified. The differences in ideals and philosophies on CSR as exhibited by Apple and Microsoft actually revealed inconsistent conclusions with that advocated by the concept. It was revealed from the concepts presented in class about CSR that the benefits of organizations for investing in CSR include: customer loyalty, workforce satisfaction, community support, and exhibiting a better corporate image. From the experiences of both Apple and Microsoft, it was confusing to realize that despite Microsoft’s application of CSR, the organization was surpassed by Apple (the organization that has not invested in CSR) in term of leadership, popularity, and financial returns. In analyzing the comparative thrusts of each organization regarding investing in CSR, one actually expected that the organization that aptly invested in CSR should exhibit greater popularity and financial returns. However, from the experience and from the information revealed in the video, the opposite effect was noted. It was therefore concluded that comparing one to the other in terms of their investment in CSR could be insufficient to validate that this factor alone was contributory to the financial success of Apple. From the perspectives of the owners, it determining factor was that the investment and application of CSR had been instrumental to the feeling of fulfillment that Bill and Melinda Gates have experienced. Their main thrust for Microsoft was not merely to generate financial returns, nor to project a positive corporate image. For Bill and Melinda Gates, the self-actualization

View of the world Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

View of the world - Essay Example minates new transformed understanding of people’s overcoming of human nature and becoming â€Å"overmans†, people who have new visionary capacities and perspectives concerning the world. The first stage of the world view is Plato’s philosophy. Plato claims that the true world is attainable here and now, but only for virtuous men. There is only one world. Supersensuous world is the true one and true things emerge in the world of ideas as far as there is a division between pure essence and appearance. This true world is attainable for temperate soul only. Temperance is the virtue of soul, so it must deny the sensuous things and desire supersensuous. If you have a temperate soul and desire to acquire the truth, you will see the true being of subjects and notice a non-sensuous world. If you have a wanton soul and desire bodily pleasure only, you will only see the â€Å"here† world and will only be present in the apparent world. Nietzsche claims that philosophy begins with the discipline of temperate soul to look. According to the text â€Å"The implication is that virtue consists in repudiation of the sensuous, since denial of the world that is closest to us, the sensuous world, is proper to the Being of beings†. Here the â€Å"true world† is not yet anything â€Å"Platonic,† that is, not something unattainable, merely desirable, and merely â€Å"ideal.† Plato himself is who he is by virtue of the fact that he unquestioningly and straightforwardly functions on the basis of the world of Ideas as the essence of Being. The supersensuous is the idea.† The ideas do not exist in this world according to Plato; they exist without color and shape. Thus, Plato is not nihilist. Second view on the world is not Plato’s, it is Platonism. It is also a Christian view. The relationship between true world and apparent world are broken. Essence and existence are separated into two different worlds. The true world is not attainable in this world. According to the text â€Å"The

What are the boundaries of Christianity Assignment

What are the boundaries of Christianity - Assignment Example Likewise, Moses’ Ten commandment provisions required all the Jews prevent Christians from stealing. Another popular commandment is to respect and bring honor to one’s parents. A very clear law, taken from the Ten Commandments, is prohibiting the love relationship between a married person and a person who is not the spouse of the married person. This is classified in our society as adultery (Galambos, 2012). During the New Testament bible time period, the bible includes the religious statements or doctrines of the apostles. The Matthew 6: 19 verse requires all Christians to prioritizing store treasures in heaven over the cares or treasures of our earth. Matthew explained that saving treasures in heaven included doing good deeds. The Doing good Christian doctrine includes visiting the sick in the hospitals. Finally, the doing good Christian doctrine means helping people in their hour of need (Yancey, 1992). Further, another bible verse indicates the importance of religiously implementing the Christian doctrines. In terms of the same level of love, the bible’s Mark 12:13 verse requires all members of the Christian faith must love one another in the same manner as one requires to be loved (Galambos, 2012). Loving may include several plain acts. The acts may include giving alms to the street beggars. Another neighborly love act may include giving clothes to the naked street people. A third act may include helping the elderly cross the busy street. Furthermore, I had questioned long and hard why Kennedy had to go espouse the importance of Christian boundaries. I liked Kennedy’s espousing members of the Christian faith must put into practice the Christian doctrines. The bible’s 2 Timothy 4: 2 requires all Christians to be instant both within season as well as out of season. The verse affirms that all Christians must obey all Christian doctrines or norms at all times and in all places (St.

World Financial Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

World Financial Environment - Essay Example The US dollar is undoubtedly the largest global currency. Most of the goods and services around the world are valued in dollars; and much of the international transactions are paid in dollars (Daniels, Radebaugh and Sullivan, 2007). It is quite evident that the President Obamas unprecedented expenditure plans would bring in millions of dollars of budget deficits and consequently increase the US national debt level by more than two-fold in the next five years. Hence, presently there is a common speculation that the dollar is moving for an all-time new slump and a probable collapse (Will the US Dollar Lose "Reserve Currency" Status?, n.d.). As a reserve currency, the dollar is expected to be stable. However, the fluctuations in the dollar value and exchange rates give a different picture all together. The economic meltdown and the global financial crisis occurred due to the financial imbalances shooting from the vast deficits in the US current account and the sever pressures arising from the accommodative monetary policy of the US that affected the exchange rate evaluation across the globe. The US dollar had the tendency to depreciate considerably with respect to the other floating currencies. Since most of the international Therefore, with most of the international transaction being carried out in dollars, some nations arbitrated in their foreign exchange markets to limit currency and monetary precariousness so as to sustain domestic financial stability. This resulted in an increase in the dollar prices of several commodities and a further escalation in the reserve accumulation (Mohan, 2009). Due to the continuous dep reciation in the value of the dollar, concerns have cropped up with regard to its status as the global economy’s reserve currency (Faux, 2002). On the one hand, the unexpected fiscal and monetary policy reactions have resulted in heavy

Diversity Outline Essay Example for Free

Diversity Outline Essay Statement: JP Morgan Chase bank is actually a well respected multinational finance service provider having monetary assets numbering in the trillions of dollars. They give good results in 60 different countries and they are moving forward to grow. Sociology General Sociology Learning Team Assignment: Equal Rights Proposition Outline Select a current social issue related to the rights of ethnic or social groups. Research the subject and existing action plans designed to solve the issue. Develop a 1,050- to 1,500- word comprehensive outline of your proposition to promote equal rights. Be sure to include the following: The issues, challenges, and opportunities experienced by this group in the labor force How society has constructed this group’s identity The legal framework relating to this issue Summary of existing or proposed solutions of differing groups. Consider the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, corporate human resource departments, state or federal laws and regulations, political strategies, government agencies, religious groups, and grass roots organizations. Whether or not this issue exists in other countries, and if so, how it is handled by differing groups Your team’s compromise or alternative to existing solutions Outline your proposition in Microsoft Word. Include at least five academic references in your research. Format your outline consistent with APA guidelines. When it comes to succeeding in college, there are many influential factors. In fact, even your choice of seat can make a difference. Try to score a seat near the front of the lecture hall rather than one right next to the exit. You are more likely to stay engaged and can ask your profess For downloading more course tutorials visit https://bitly.com/1xpzHSE When it comes to succeeding in college, there are many influential factors. In fact, even your choice of seat can make a difference. Try to score a seat near the front of the lecture hall rather than one right next to the exit. You are more likely to stay engaged and can ask your professor questions easily. Sociology General Sociology Learning Team Assignment: Equal Rights Proposition Outline Select a current social issue related to the rights of ethnic or social groups. Research the subject and existing action plans designed to solve the issue. Develop a 1,050- to 1,500- word comprehensive outline of your proposition to promote equal rights. Be sure to include the following: The issues, challenges, and opportunities experienced by this group in the labor force How society has constructed this group’s identity The legal framework relating to this issue Summary of existing or proposed solutions of differing groups. Consider the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, corporate human resource departments, state or federal laws and regulations, political strategies, government agencies, religious groups, and grass roots organizations. Whether or not this issue exists in other countries, and if so, how it is handled by differing groups Your team’s compromise or alternative to existing solutions Outline your proposition in Microsoft Word. Include at least five academic references in your research. Format your outline consistent with APA guidelines.

The Socio Demographic Profile Education Essay

The Socio Demographic Profile Education Essay Education is the process of nurturing and developing the skills, capacities and potentials of the students to prepare them to be successful in their chosen careers. From this point of view, education is serving primarily as an individual development function. Education is constant and ongoing. It is a never ending process. Formal education usually starts at the age four where children attend school for the purposes of specific guidance related to skills and competencies that society sees important. In the past, once a student finishes formal education in the tertiary level, the process was finished. However, in todays changing world, individuals do not only learn inside the four walls of the classroom and continue to learn throughout their working lives. In its broadest sense, education may be defined as a process developed to instill the knowledge, skills, talents and attitudes necessary to enable individuals to adjust and cope effectively with their environment. Its main purpose is to foster and promote the fullest self-realization for all individual. Achieving this goal requires understanding of commitment to the proposition that education is a primary tool or instrument for the advancement of human welfare both on social and economic aspect (Verma, 1990). Ramaswamy(1990), stated that we are in the generation where the world is becoming more and more competitive, performance and quality of work has become the key factor for personal progress and development. Every parents want the best and only the best for their children. They want their children to excel and to be on top. With this desire to excel and be on top, the pressure is not only with the students but with the teachers, the schools and in general the education system itself. In fact, it seems as if the whole educational system revolves around the students academic achievement, though other various outcomes are also expected from the school system. Thus the school exerts a lot of time, effort and resources in helping students to achieve better in their scholastic endeavors. The importance of academic and scholastic achievement gave rise to important questions for educational researchers. What factors contributes to the academic achievement of students? How do these different fa ctors contribute towards their academic achievement? Safaya, et al. (1963) mentioned that human life, which is the ultimate creation and gift of god to humankind, has got two aspects: The biological and sociological or cultural. While the former is maintained and transmitted by food and reproduction, the latter is preserved and transmitted by education. It is again through education that he promotes his intelligence and adds his knowledge with which he can move the world for good and for evil according to his wishes. Education in fact, is one of the major life processes of the human beings just as there are certain indispensable vital processes of life in a biological sense. So education may be considered a vital process in a social sense. Education is indispensable to normal living, without education the individual would be unqualified for group life. Every students academic achievement may be affected by various factors like intelligence, study habits, different aspects of their personality, attitudes of the students towards school, peers, socio economic status, demographic profile, the school system etc. The desire to be successful is derived from individuals concept of himself and in terms of the meaning of various incentives as they spell success and failure in the eye of others. Thus a child who sees himself to be on top, as scholars, as successful may set as his goal the attainment of the highest grade in the class. Nuthanap (2007) said that any modern society will not be able achieve its aim of cultural advancement, technical development and economic growth without cultivating and developing the talents of its citizens. One of the major purposes of education is to help children to develop their skills and those skills will help them have a better future. Teachers and counselors in educational institutions are often confronted with students who appear to have above average scholastic aptitude but are very poor in their studies. A recurring question that puzzles them is why some students succeed in their study while others do not. This question is sometimes considered to be closely related to learning than teaching. Jamuar (1974) stated that not only on good teaching methods but also good study attitude affects the students learning. Anwana and Cobbach (1989) are also of the view that there are other factors why students do badly academically other than low intellectual capacity. Tiwari and Bansa l (1994) also stated if that an individual has a high academic achievement he is likely to have a better opportunity in life and low achievers will have difficulty in landing a job after graduation. In our society academic achievement is considered a basis for an individuals potentials and capabilities. Hence academic achievement occupies a very important place in education as well as in the learning process. Academic achievement is defined by Crow and Crow (1969) as the extent to which a learner is profiting from instructions in a given area of learning i.e., achievement is reflected by the extent to which skill and knowledge has been imparted to him. Academic achievement also denotes the knowledge attained and skill developed in the school subject, usually designated by test scores. Achievement is influenced by personality, motivation, opportunities, education and training. There are several other factors also which influence the academic achievement of student like study habit, self-concept, socio economic status, intelligence etc. Study habits Other than low intellectual capacity, there are many factors why many students do badly academically. One factor is poor study habits, in which naturally intelligent students will have poor or low academic performance because they have bad study habits. Habits are true indicators of individuality in a person. So study habits may be defined as the behavior of an individual in relation to his studies. In the process of learning, learners habitual ways of exercising and practicing their abilities for learning are considered as study habits of learners. The pattern of behavior adopted by students in the pursuit of their studies is considered under the caption of their study habits. Study habits reveal students personality. Learners learning character is characterized by his study habits. Study habits serve as the vehicle of learning. It may be seen as both means and ends of learning. Study habits play a very important role in the life of students. Success or failure of each student depends upon his own study habits. Of course, study is an art and as such it requires practice. Some students study more but they fail to achieve more. Others study less but achieve more. Success of each student definitely depends upon ability, intelligence and effort of students. No doubt, regular study habits bring their own rewards in the sense of achievement of success. There are many types of disadvantaged students: physically, mentally, socially culturally, educationally and emotionally. The socially disadvantaged are not handicapped by genetic deficiency, but by the socio economic circumstances of their lives. The socio economic disadvantage prevents them from developing their basic and natural potentialities. The disadvantages are not with the individual, but with the society. Study habits refer to the activities carried out by learners during the learning process of improving learning. Study habits are intended to elicit and guide ones cognitive processes during learning. According to Patel (1976) study habits include. 1. Home environment and planning of work 2. Reading and note taking habits 3. Planning of subjects 4. Habits of concentration 5. Preparation for examination 6. General habits and attitudes 7. School environment The study habits are influenced by attitudes, personality traits, levels of aspirations, teaching methods adopted and material they are to learn. So, it is the effort of teachers to develop good study habits among students. Such habits are the best equipment with which they can live and lead their lives with confidence. If the habits are developed in the young age they will definitely cherish the joy of its fruits in the rest of their lives, because grown up children are already habituated to certain things. So they find it difficult it modify their habits and behavior. Therefore, it is better to develop study habits in secondary school students. It is the proper time and age to cultivate study habits. At this age students are quite matured. They are able to know what is good and what is bad. They can avoid bad things and invite good things with the help of teachers. Self-concept As a child grows and develops, he learns, not only about the world about him and his place in it, but also about himself. Each person lives with himself and hence, to some degree is always alone. No one can ever completely know the self-better than anyone else, although in the pursuit for understanding oneself and others there has developed much of human thought and philosophy, including psychology. Man has long held the hope of answering such questions as: who am I? How did I come to be this way? And their logical consequence, the search for purpose; why am I? (Nadalmani, 2001). The psychological construct, the self-concept is essentially private even though it is in part translated into action by the beliefs we express. Sidhu (1987) defined self-concept as those perceptions, beliefs, feelings, attitudes and values which the individual views on describing himself. Personality is not a specific quality of a person but a quality of his behavior. How he behaves depends upon how he feels about himself, about other people and about his relationship with them. These feelings make up his self-concept what he thinks about himself as a person. A persons self-concept is the fundamental core of his entire personality and determines the quality of behavior. It can be predicted that the poor self-concept implying lack of confidence in facing and mastering the environment, will accomplish his performance in school. In sum, the self-concept does appear to be related to school adjustment. Substantial evidence indicates that children and adults with poor self-concept when compared with those who have high self-concept are more anxious and less adjusted generally and less popular, are less effective in groups and are less honest about themselves. The pattern of parental rewards and punishments seems to affect the self-concept and quite certainly, the self-concept of bright but under achieving youngsters are less positive than those of children who are doing as well as can be expected in school. Incidentally children tend to mold their self-concept according to the way they think their teachers regarded them. Adolescence is a period of biosocial transition from childhood to adulthood. This period extends roughly from 12-19 years. Now a days puberty occurs earlier than it used to be, due to improvement in nutrition and health care. This has lengthened the transition from adolescence to adulthood. A dramatic biological change occurs in adolescents. In early adolescence, they experience a growth spurt. As a result they stop thinking of themselves as children and parents begin to expect matured behavior from them. Conflicts with parents, teachers, peers and society may arise over their demands and expectations along with this task of establishing a their own identity, which involves an understanding of self, of ones relationship with others and of ones values and roles in society. Erickson (1981) describes this as Identity crisis. Adolescents adopt many strategies to resolve this crisis by trying out different roles like good girl / boy, dutiful daughter / son, a rebel, athlete and so on. The world is becoming more and more competitive and parents desire that their children achieve high in academics. During this stage the influence of school far outweighs all others. So good schooling and effective teacher guidance are of utmost importance. Performance at school and experience in the larger world are related to the self-image of students. They have to strive hard to achieve better results academically. As a result, school and studies become major stressors. Hence, adolescents tend to give up and neglect recreational activities. This has resulted in the absence of physical and mental relaxation. The best type of relaxation is one in which the students learn the skill of relaxing. Schools should provide opportunities for regular physical and mental training like yoga which is a relaxation technique which will facilitate the enhancement of study habits, self-concept and academic performance (Erickson 1981). Teachers in school should become facilitators of learning. The i nfinite treasure with in every learner should be discovered and nurtured. For the purpose of improving learning, effective study skills have to be taught. Study skills may involve reference, reading, listening, study habits and learning strategies. Learning improves with planning of where, when and how much to study. Nayak et al. (2004) defined teaching as not about giving information, knowledge and skills to students, but it is about giving opportunities for students to mold their personality and develop their talents and skills. The primary purpose of teaching is to assist the individual to attain his and her full potential as well as to develop the necessary skills to cope up with the changing environment. The family, religious organizations and community also share primary responsibility in the educational process. Socio Demographic Profile Quality of education is mostly assessed on the basis of academic performance, and achievement scores are considered to be its primary indicators. However, achievement scores alone neither provide sufficient understanding of the causes of students success or failure, nor suggest the ways for improving the achievement. There is a need to identify and analyze the factors that can affect academic performance. The understanding of these factors can suggest some measures for improving the quality of education. Research on the academic achievement suggests that it has relationship with some demographic characteristics. For example, Jaeger Eagan (2007) and Cole Espinoza (2008) found gender differences in the academic performance of male and female students. Keith, et. al. (2006) found positive relationship between age and academic performance. However, Kaur, et. al. (2010) found that age does not significantly contribute to academic performance of university students in distance learning. Tuttle (2004) found that students academic performance correlates with the family household income and their place of residence. Davis-Kean (2005) found on his study that educational attainment of the parents and household income are strong predictors of academic achievement. Acharya and Joshi (2009) found that parents education can affect the achievement motivation in academic area. Yousefi, et. al. (2010) found that there is a relationship between family income and academic achievement of students. The above stated research studies indicate that some demographic factors may affect academic achievement of students. It was hypothesized that some demographic factors may be significant predictors of academic achievement of students. Locale Colegio de Sebastian, an educational institution that commits itself in academic excellence of the students is just a new school as compared to other big universities in Pampanga. As of to date there has been no research made about the students academic achievement. The researcher decided to conduct research in the school so as not only to help the students but also the school itself. Keeping in view the importance of study habits, self-concept, socio demographic status and academic achievement Colegio de Sebastian students was taken up with following specific objectives. _ To analyze the study habits of the students in Colegio de Sebastian. _ To study the self-concept of the students in Colegio de Sebastian. _ To determine the socio demographic profile of boys and male and female girls studying in Colegio de Sebastian. _ To know the influence of study habits, self-concept, socio demographic status on academic achievement. Research Problem At Colegio de Sebastian, where the research will be conducted, student applicants are selected based on specific academic criteria. Students should get a specific grade in the entrance exam in order to be admitted at Colegio de Sebastian. Despite these standards and the selection process, on average, 15% of all the students failed their math, science and English subjects. This is not a troubling number of failures, but it highlights the question, What factors beyond intelligence, are responsible for the variance in the academic achievement of students? What causes an intelligent student to either succeed or to fail in school? This is a question of great concern for many prospective and current students. It is also a concern for the faculty members who feel responsible for the students, and for the parents who have to pay the tuition fees. Myburgh, Grobler and Niehaus (1999) state that there is an increasing awareness that individual differences in intelligence alone cannot account for all, or even for the majority, of differences in academic achievement. One can conclude that besides intellectual ability, there have to be other factors that play a role in the learning and the academic achievement of students. Other important factors include the students interests and their involvement in various academic tasks, how they perceive their interactions with their teachers, and what they feel and think about themselves with regard to the execution of academic tasks (Sikhwari 2004:13). Also included here are the students attitude, their self-concept and motivation (Sikhwari 2004), self-determination (Mnyandu 2001), motivation, self-efficacy and perceived value (Nilsen 2009), stress and anxiety (Bester 2003), their socio-economic resources, parental involvement and family obligations (Areepattamannil Freeman 2008), and learning strategies (Rodriguez 2009). This study will focus on academic self-concept and study habits as factors that could influence and cause a variance in academic achievement. Research by McCoach and Siegle (2003) suggest that self-concept helps to predict academic achievement. They state that as much as one third of the variance in achievement can be accounted for by academic self-concept. Findings seem to lend support to the theory that consistent success or failure has an effect on self-concept, and that the level of academic achievement is influenced by an individuals self-concept of ability (Dambudzo 2009:6). The following highlights the importance of self-concept in academic achievement, when Mostert (1995:6) contends that a positive self-concept is one of the most vital elements for success, and because self-concept is both a personal and motivational variable, its overall contribution to the variance of academic achievement should be quite high; individuals seem to be motivated to perform in a manner consistent with their self-concept. Mwamwenda (in Dambudzo 2009:6) states that educators generally believe that an understanding of self-concept and what it involves is essential if education is to achieve its ultimate goal of developing the individuals highest possible potential. In addition, an awareness of the role self-concept plays in human behaviour and development will enable educators to deliberately introduce ways of maximizing self-concept as an integral part of whatever they do in their interactions with learners. Marsh (in Areepattamannil Freeman 2008:7.5) declares that a higher self-concept is associated with greater academic achievement among students. There is also evidence to the contrary, namely that humble self-assessments are more conducive to academic achievement, according to Ocshe (2003:67), Yoon, Eccles and Wigfield (1996) and Trusty, Watts and House (1996). Despite much research, there are no conclusive studies that clearly indicate the link that joins academic self-concept and academic achieve ment (Sanchez Roda 2003). Existing theory and research of Deci and Ryan (in Mnyandu 2001:1) have shown that self-determination (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation and amotivation) plays a prominent role in the academic performance of learners. Kushmand, Sieber and Harold (in Broussard 2002) declare that a high level of motivation and engagement in learning has consistently been linked to a reduction in the number of drop-outs, and to increased levels of student success. In any academic setting, whether it be elementary, secondary or higher education, a students motivation for learning is generally regarded as one of the most important determinants, if not the premier determinant, of the success and quality of the learning outcome (Mitchell in Broussard 2001:7). However, the relationship between motivation and academic achievement remains complex (McCoach Siegle 2001:73). Mnyandu (2001:11) declares that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, are prerequisites for academic achievement. Mnyandu (2001: 11) considers it imperative that educators acquire a broad understanding of these different forms of motivation in order to help the learner to make use of the specific type of motivation that will facilitate his/her success in achieving the set goals. In the light of the above, the research question can be indicated as follows: How may the participants be described in terms of their Socio Demographic profile? age gender course family income number of members of the family How may the participants be described in terms of their Study Habits? How may participants be described in terms of their Academic Achievement? Can academic self-concept, study habits and socio demographic profile predict the level of academic achievement of students of Colegio de Sebastian? Hypothesis of the Study There is a significant relationship between the students Academic Self-concept and Academic Achievement There is no significant difference between the students Academic Self-concept and Academic Achievement There is a significant difference between the students Study Habits and Academic Achievement There is no significant difference between the students Study Habits and Academic Achievement There is a significant difference between the students Socio-demographic profile and Academic Achievement Academic self-concept, study habits and socio demographic status can be used to predict academic achievement. Academic self-concept, study habits and socio demographic status cannot be used to predict academic achievement. Significance of the Study Study habits, self-concept and socio economic status play a very important role in bringing about the better academic achievement. The study could bring to light the importance of academic self-concept, study habits and socio demographic profile which are the major contributors of academic achievement. Through this research, the counselor can come up with an intervention program that would help the low achievers. Students would also know the reason why they are getting low grades. Faculty members could also adjust their teaching methods for students with low academic performance. Delimitations of the Study The study will be confined to college students. Moreover, the study will be conducted only at Colegio de Sebastian. Academic achievement will only include English, Math and Science subjects.

Case Study of Architect Serina Hijjas and Menara Telekom

Case Study of Architect Serina Hijjas and Menara Telekom THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM INTRODUCTION    Ar. Serina Hijjas is a 50 years old renowned local architect who has more than 20 years of experience in architectural field. She has done many high rise government projects in Malaysia and also participated in several international projects. Having an amazing architect, Hijjas Kasturi as her father, she was exposed to the architecture world earlier than any other architect. This has helped her much to develop her own design theory since young. She has also worked in Foster Associates for a few years in United Kingdom. Today, she is the director of Hijjas Kasturi Associates and also the foundingmember of Malaysias Green Building Index Technical Committee. Menara Telekom, Kuala Lumpur is an office building designed by the father daughter Serina Hijjas and Hijjas Kasturi in year 1995, completion of building construction was in year 2001. Menara Telekom is an intelligent building rated with six stars for its design efforts on green element or sustainability. The tower is a 55 storeys high accommodates a working population of approximately 8000. It has a 1500 seat theatre and a large exhibition area under the foot of the tower. Since the client of the building – TM Malaysia is a provider of telecommunication services, this intelligent building has been designed to reflect their commitment on energy efficiency in the building management and maintenance system. To study Serina Hijjas’s personal attributes of architectural theory in the design of Menara Telekom, analysis and observation is done physically and intellectually to theorize and understand the architecture. 3 EXTERNAL CONTRIBUTING FACTOR a) Climate The first external contributing factor of Serina Hijjas’s design on Menara Telekom would be the climate. Malaysia receives abundant of sunlight throughout a year. Hijjas has carefully designed the building by orientating the office building to face the North and South side to avoid the occupants from receiving direct glare. To solve the penetration of sunlight from East and West, sky gardens are designed in between of the two office tower to shade the indoor spaces. The gardens provide the users of the building the comfort and convenient to go outside the building, away from the busy working floors, to humanize the working environment in this large structure. Besides, the South and North faà §ades are installed with long and slim tinted glass window panels to reduce extreme glare from sunlight. At the same time, all the window panel on the building faà §ade is also able to provide sufficient daylight to the office tower to reduce the energy consumption of the building. On th e other hand, Serina Hijjas has done a great effort in designing a good air circulation in this building to allow the wind pass through the building fenestration. The air pressure theory is being applied on the sky gardens whereby hot air rises on the sky gardens (which received sunlight from East and West) causing high pressure, and the high pressure pushes the air creating a continuous air movement between the exterior and interior of building. Thus, the building is able to receive fresh air supply through sky garden and release exhaust air from air conditioner in the building to the outdoor through windows of the office tower. This careful design strategy of the sun and wind working together has brought great advantage to the Menara Telekom, making it an efficient intelligent building. The consideration of Hijjas on the orientation of building to the sunlight penetration and wind movement has shown her efforts on designing the building in response to the climate. Figure 1. Air circulation in Menara Telekom b) Architectural Theory – Regionalism The second external contributing factor of Serina Hijjas on designing Menara Telekom is Regionalism. Regionalism is an architectural theory which embraces modern architecture but at the same time takes in the consideration of geographical context. Kenneth Frampton once said â€Å"it should be on topography, light, climate, on tectonic form rather than on scenography.† Menara Telekom is a modern building which contain metaphor of local element that reflects the identity of Malaysia. It is a visual translation of â€Å"bamboo shoots† into the form or shape of building. The bamboo could represent the identity of Malaysia because it is a common plant or construction material used in local. Not only with the building form that is able to reflect Malaysia’s identity, Menara Telekom is also responding to the surrounding context with its concrete faà §ade which fits in harmoniously with the neighbor building on the site. The expression of building materiality shows the building respects the street context (most of the neighbor building are built using concrete) and stands on the ground in a humble way without overpowering the surrounding environment. Moreover, as one of the tallest building in Kuala Lumpur, Menara Telekom is designed to provide different element of visual forms, whether taller or shorter; slimmer or broader depending on different viewpoint from the street. For example, when someone is standing on the North and South, the full breadth of Menara Telekom is shown, creating a broader view; but when one is standing on the East and West, it looks slim and appear to be taller. This interesting visual perception has shown how much Serina Hijjas thinks about the visual experience of the people on the street. She knows it is important to consider the view from different direction when the building she designs is built this tall and many would view it from different way. Furthermore, the orientation of the building has been designed to respo nd well to the sunlight penetration and air circulation as what the climate factor explains. The sky garden is the strategy used by Hijjas to treat the hot East and West side. Moreover, the huge transparent wall under the canopy which marks the main entrance of the building, is designed to face the main road, Federal Highway as an inviting sign to welcome people to enter the building. Serina Hijjas’s design has responded well from site context to climate factor, making Menara Telekom a building that has regionalism qualities. c) Socio-culture The third external contributing factor of Serina Hijjas’s design is socio-culture. Hijjas Kasturi Associates has an interest to design building using metaphor that reflects certain meaning. According to the lists of building that the firm has done, there are a few buildings being designed to symbolize something. For example, Maybank building in Kuala Lumpur symbolizes Keris (a Malay weapon and also an indicator of social status), The Pod which represents the droplets of Mother Nature (responded to the site context). Menara Telekom is no exception. Menara Telekom uses bamboo shoots as a metaphor to represent Malaysia’s Identity. In Malaysia, bamboo is a common and well-known plantation that is being used frequently. It can be used in various industry for different purposes such as construction material, design material, food, and many more. Menara Telekom is designed to represent the â€Å"bamboo shoot† of bamboo to convey a message whereby young bamboo has strong foundations at its root with its leaves unfurling one by one. This design concept is also often associated with the Malaysia artist Latiff Mohidin;s image of a pucuk rebung (bamboo shoot), but only the idea for a contoured form had to be balanced against technical limitations. Serina Hijjas designed the building in a way where she uses repetitive elements on the faà §ade and floor plates in a tight core planning to achieve equilibrium but still maintaining the shape of a bamboo shoot. In short, the sculptural form of the building was developed by the design team to sought out a shape that can reflect the cultural identity of Malaysia, making the building an instant recognized skyscraper that people could see it as building that represents Malaysia. Figure 2. Bamboo shoot DISCUSSION OF ARCHITECT’S THEORY By looking on the three external contributing factors that have influenced Serina Hijjas in designing the building, it somehow shows that Serina’s design principal is inspired by her father, Hijjas Kasturi, and some experiences that she has gained while working at Foster Associates in United Kingdom. Serina Hijjas who always look up to her father since young has the same design intention as her father but she does it in her own way with the assist of more modern technology knowledge. Like her father, Hijjas Kasturi’s project, she always wanted to design building which suits the local architecture language whether by its look or its function but she includes energy efficiency and sustainability features into her design. This approach is important to her because as an architect who has been exposed to different foreign architecture environment (especially Europe where she spent most of her study time), she realized the importance to design a building that is thoughtful an d responsible to the environment, making the building lasts longer on earth without causing harm. At the same time, she doesn’t neglect the need to move on from modernism to the post modernism thinking as she designs her building with more interesting elements in terms of form and materiality to break out the box of designing a â€Å"machine building†. It makes her an architect who has a practical design approach as basic design concept which is inspired by her father, and also has acquire the environment friendly quality in her building which has influenced her from her experience and realization while working overseas. In addition, Serina Hijjas has always got her own design theory when designing a building in which she would emphasize the â€Å"lightness† of one building. By looking at the various projects done by Hijjas, it is shown that the reason of her on insisting having â€Å"lightness† element in a building is to make a building looks less massive and bulky. During the 1980’s when Serina Hijjas was working in United Kingdom, the building in the city at the time has shown various elements of post-modernism design incorporating with new advanced technology. The use of steel and glass has become another important feature to make a building looks modern and lighter. It was the time where the two famous new materials were introduced to the world and they received good response in architecture industry. Many people becomes fond with the new materials since then. Perhaps being influenced by the architecture trend in Europe, Serina Hijjas is using the â€Å"lightness† as one of her important design basis on her project until today to show her concern for Malaysia to follow the modern architecture pace in overseas once she came back working from United Kingdom. It is important for her to design a building which is less visual burden to create a feeling as if the building is breathing lively but not standing on ground massively, therefore she likes to play around with â€Å"lightness† element in her projects design. Besides, while applying lightness on her building design, the building of Serina Hijjas has portrayed another key feature where she never designed a building to overpower the context surrounding. It is a humble way of her to let the building respect the site context by using the same architectural language and element unlike some commercial building which is shouting for people to notice. It shows that Serina Hijjas is a considerate architect who thinks carefully on every possible factors that will not only influence the building i tself but also the surrounding context. CONCLUSION In a nutshell, Serina Hijjas is an architect or a designer who portrays postmodernism qualities with energy efficiency and sustainability thought in her design that is based on â€Å"lightness† basis. As the daughter of the local legendary architect Hijjas Kasturi, Serina Hijjas definitely has the qualities that her father is famous for and she even make the effort to create her own way of expressing her architectural theory into her design. Her way of designing makes her absolutely one of a kind in Malaysia architecture industry.