Candide Characters Essay Example for Free

Candide Characters Essay In Candide, the character called Pangloss is believed to be a parody of philosophers who spent their time idly wondering about the world or debating points that have no real significance to life situations.   For instance, Pangloss keeps on saying that the world is good despite all of the misfortunes that have befallen him. Many experts believe that Voltaire was also making fun at G.W. von Leibniz, a seventeenth-century philosopher who was part of a greater movement called theodicy.   This school of thought explains that evil exists in the world because they serve particular purposes.    That even if the world is perfect because it was created by a perfect God, it is necessary to allow evil to happen.   Its clear that Voltaire does not believe, like how philosophers did, that there is an inherent goodness in everything and that everything happens for a reason, even the bad ones. Setting: The nobility of France In this play, the setting could be defined as the society, which is present at that time.   In other words, some members of the nobility of France were part of Candides life, like Cunegonde and her brother.   One example wherein Voltaire poked fun at this class is when he related that the barons sister didnt marry Candides father because he only had seventy-one noble lineages. Action: Jacques Death Jacques, a good man who helped Candide and Pangloss, fell on a turbulent sea as he was rescuing a sailor.   The sailor, instead of helping Jacques to get back to the ship ignored the poor man, which resulted to his death.   In this example, it would seem that Voltaire is parodying the Christian preaching of good overcoming evil.   Here, Jacques did a good deed and was a good man but he died because of it.   To add to the mockery, Pangloss even said that the sea outside Lisbon was specifically created so that Jacques could drown in it. Works Cited Arouet, Francois-Marie.   Candide by Voltaire. Courier Dover Publications, 1991. Ward, Selena, and Jaffee, Valerie.   Candide.   Sparknotes Home Page.   21 July 2008 http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/candide/index.html

The Fundamental Rethinking Processes Of BPR

The Fundamental Rethinking Processes Of BPR BPR is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. The major benefit of BPR is that it eliminates redundancies of work and improves accuracy. BPR can transform the basic ways that people and departments work and allow users to work better and often to produce higher quality work. BPR would enable smooth restructuring process of business processes at Velogic Airlines Limited. The chapter discusses BPR process, implementation method and the changes those may have to be made for upgrading the existing ERP system at Velogic Airlines Limited. Details about the modules related to Human Resource and Payroll System, Finance and Accounting System and Inventory Management System have also been elaborated in the chapter. Business Process Reengineering (BPR) is the organizational procedure required to align people, processes and technology with strategies to accomplish business integration. It can be considered as taking a business in its current state and forming an organizational and operational blueprint to redirect skills, polices, information (data), cultural values, organizational structures, processing and incentives towards targeted improvements15.  [1]   Velogic Airlines Limited are now inspiring to enhance their airline by coordinating their business processes more closely and in some cases integrating these processes so that they can focus more on efficient management of resources and customer service. The oracle application would not require specific non-intuitive software to be installed. Virtually all-new systems available in the market today run in industry standard web browsers, thus reducing software and training costs. Moreover with the emergence of new competitors they need to enhance their service level and be a step ahead of competitors. A powerful type of organization change is brought forward the business process reengineering (BPR) also known as Business Process Improvement (BPI) or business process redesign. From the early 1990s it became familiar for management in many organizations to focus their attention inwards and to consider how proficient business processes can be redesigned or re-engineered. Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is the popular term for reutilisation of organizational procedures and structure following the introduction of new information technologies into an organization. It is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to accomplish impressive improvements in critical contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed. Objectives of BPR A more significant kind of organizational change is business process reengineering, in which business processes are analyzed, simplified and redesigned. Using information technology, organizations can rethink and streamline their business processes to improve speed, service, and quality. Business Process Re-engineering reorganizes workflows, combining steps to cut waste and eradicating repetitive, paper-intensive tasks (sometimes the new design eliminates jobs as well). It is more ambitious than rationalization of procedures, requiring a new vision of how the process is to be organized  [2]  16. BPR Advantages over Automation and Rationalization The evolution of the information-processing pattern over the last four decades to build intelligence and administer amendments in business functions and processes has generally progressed over three phases: Automation Rationalization Business Process Re-engineering Each of them carries different rewards and risk. The most common form of IT-enabled organizational changes is automation. The first applications of information technology implicated assisting employees with achieving their tasks more efficiently and effectively. A deeper form of organizational change one that follows quickly from early automation is rationalization of procedures. Automation frequently reveals new bottlenecks in production and makes the existing arrangement of procedures and structures painfully large. Rationalisation of procedures is the streamlining of standard operating procedures more efficient. BPR, ERP AND IT In the majority of cases, information technology powers BPR. Formerly, information technology was used to facilitate companies automate existing business processes but now, technology is being used to transform those processes fundamentally. Current developments in information technology have not only made BPR possible on a radical and extensive scale, but also more efficient. The merger of the two concepts has resulted in the latest concept, namely, business engineering (BE). BE combines the innovations of information technology with BPRs focus on better business processes. The heart and soul of BE lying in radical, process-oriented business solutions, which have been greatly enhanced by the information technology of client/server computing. ERP is a tool, which acts as a facilitator of BE to mould business processes efficiently  [3]  17. While the objectives of BPR have not been altered by information technology, they have gained an extra dimension in business engineering. The main thrust of BE is the efficient redesign of a companys value-added chains. By definition, value-added chains are the set of connected steps running through a business which, when quickly and efficiently completed, add value to both, the company and the customer. With the appearance of enterprise software systems, information technology has become a business-modeling vehicle that can assist in the redesigning of those processes. Method of implementation Before deciding upon a BE project, the management, IT users, and the IT experts must get together to chart out Velogic Airlines Limited goals and identify the key processes that affect its success. Next, those processes should be reengineered to improve their effectiveness. At this point, the BE team must establish how information technology can enhance the reengineered process. Other potential benefits of information technology should be identified, such as its role in developing a business strategy to satisfy customer requirements. The BE team must maximize and streamline business process and access whether they should be changed or perhaps thrown out, before they apply technology to them. Velogic Airlines Limited has different kinds of information systems that support different functions, organizational levels, and business processes. Most of these systems are built around different functions; business units and business processes that do not talk to each other. Because of the challenges mentioned earlier the company has decided to set up an ERP system. Oracle Application consist of a set of interdependent modules for applications such as sales and distribution, financial accounting, investment management, and human resources that allow data to be used by multiple functions and business process for more precise organizational coordination and control. The modules can communicate with each other directly or by sharing a common repository of data. ERP helps to support organization-wide process coordination and integration. It creates an integrated organization-wide platform to coordinate key internal processes of the firm. They address the issue of organizational ineffi ciencies created by isolated islands of information, business processes, and technology. Information that was previously split in different applications can seamlessly flow throughout the company so that business processes in finance, accounts; human resources, payroll and inventory can share it. The systems collects data from various key business processes and stores the data in a single comprehensive data repository where they can be used by other parts of the business. Managers emerge with more precise and timely information for coordinating the daily operations of the business and the company wide view of business processes and information flows. Select the process appoint process team for restructuring the process. Business processes are simply a set of activities that transform a set of inputs into a set of outputs for another person or process using people and tools. The strategic processes: Account Payable/Receivable Client Record Employee Record Training plans Inventory Separate systems were built over a long period of time to support discrete business processes and discreet business functions. The organizations systems rarely included vendors and customers. Managers also required IT support in order to create accounting and inventory reports, a labour- and time-intensive project that complicated the estimation of future inventory levels and product availability. In many cases, these simple reports took days to complete. It was difficult to assemble data to get an overall picture of the organizations operations. Facing increasing accounting and administrative needs, the company wanted to streamline business practices and provide better visibility into financial information. ERP systems integrate the key business processes of the company into a single software system that allows information to flow seamlessly throughout the organization. These systems focus primarily on internal processes but may include transactions with customers and vendors. The new system proposes to give employees an easy-to-use interface for creating reports, tracking sales and customers, and searching inventory lists. Prime benefits from BPR are: positive effect on service quality the entire organization can respond more efficiently to customer query and deliver information on time labor resources (improved employee morale and productivity) Customer satisfaction (quicker response to customer requests). elimination of bottlenecks and delays between steps provide simultaneous access to documents by multiple departments/people allow for quick, simple access to information elimination of redundancies of work and improves accuracy decreasing defects, errors Business engineering makes companies more customer-focused and responsive to changes in the market. The organisation achieves these results by reshaping corporate structures around business processes. BE implements change not by the complete automation of a business but rather by the redefinition of company tasks in holistic or process-oriented terms. Only companies with innovative staff, products, and services as well as short development cycles, will be able to retain the market or by hope to get a bigger slice of the pie. By maximizing individual and team creativity and emphasizing a process-oriented approach, BE enables a company to realize its goals. Examples of business processes With the current practice Accounting and Finance department was not able to tell what the items available in inventory were and when they were ordered without consulting the inventory department. All entry for invoices, credit notes, accounts receivable and checks had to be continually checked with each department before entering data. Human resource Payrolls had to send report for all payments. Transferred of information was done on paper and then each department made the necessary entry or adjustment. There was no control over data transmitted and on items ordered. The traditional system also affected employee productivity. Staff members struggled to use online resources to complete daily tasks. Sales teams had difficulty tracking customer history and face difficulty to extract data from the system. It was time consuming to use the traditional system resulting delay in work and customer dissatisfaction, as they could not get the information they requested on time. After reengineering process all departments will be interconnected. Transfer of information will occur more smoothly and on time. The process will be as follows: When a reservation officer enters a customer reservation, the data flows automatically to others in the company who need to see them. The ERP system stores the reservation information where customer service representatives can track progress and know how many seats are available. Updated sales data automatically flow to the Accounting and Finance department. The system transmits the information to calculate the companys balance sheets, accounts receivable and payable ledgers and available cash. Management can view up-to-date minute data on sales and inventory at every step of the process. With the present system Accounting and Finance department get all the information automatically for instance all checks are printed now instead manually prepared. For any information required each department just have to verify on the system and it is automatically processed whereas before for all information they have to consult respective departments. Now there will be better control and resource management. After reengineering, staff members can perform customer service-related and inventory-related tasks without having to open multiple programs. Role-based security features keep sensitive information from employees who are not authorized to view it. On the other hand, managers and employees can gain access without having to call IT support to the information that they need to perform their jobs well. Employees have access to company information from a centralised point-of-entry. Through powerful analytics-reporting tools, Velogic Airlines Limited decision makers have a way to better manage operational matters, such as reservation fulfillment and inventory levels and improved management with real-time data, such as accounts receivable. IT Requirements A commonly disregarded area is the issue of information technology change. Often, the IT infrastructure changes required to implement a new ERP Oracle are not given high priority, which these technology issues otherwise, deserve. Undoubtedly, business issues should drive implementing ERP Oracle, not technology that improves business processes. Ignoring the preparation and education new information technology requires is asking for trouble. Further, IT personnel often must make the technology transition quickly. If the technology and infrastructure transition are not done well, the project, at the very least, will be delayed. Oracle Technology Oracle Applications include the license usage for Oracle 9i RDBMS and Oracle 9iAS Enterprise Edition software  [4]  18. Oracle 9i Oracle Applications run on Oracle technology. Oracle RDBMS 9i is the market leader in reliable and scalable database technology that continuously upgrades its products upgrading to the latest version is made easy with subscription to the Oracle Technical Support Service. Oracle RDBMS is the market leader with a market share of 33.8% compare to IBM which maintained a steady 30% portion of total database sales. Microsofts SQL Server product cornered 13.9% of the market. Oracle is based on three-tier architecture. This is different from the traditional client server architecture in the way that the application instead of residing on the client now resides on the middle-tier i.e. the Application Server. This enables access of application from the client-end, which just needs to have a web browser. The three tiers of Oracles architecture are as follows: Presentation tier (or user interface) This tier interfaces with the user and consists of hardware such as a PC or workstation and a web browser. This may consist of any number of client machines. Functionality /Business Logic tier- This tier provides functionality to the end users and contains the business logic (application). It provides the bridge between the first and the third tiers. Data tier This tier includes the database that contains all the data of the organization and this is encapsulated from the end users. This three-tier architecture can work on the Intranet as well as over the Internet. A typical diagrammatic representation of the three-tier architecture of Oracle is as follows: Figure 4 Oracles 3-Tier Architecture The various software components at the three tiers are as follows: Client Tier Operating System (Windows XP/7) Java enabled web browser (Internet Explorer 8.0/higher or Mozilla Firefox 4.0 of higher) Middle Tier Platform Windows NT 4.0/Windows 2000/SUN Solaris Oracle IAS Developer 2000 Server 2.1 (Forms Reports Server required for ERP component) Database Tier Platform Windows NT 4.0/SUN Solaris Oracle 9i Workgroup server Technical Strengths Oracle product being based on three-tier architecture enables resource intensive components to run on Middle tier thereby moving bulk of the processing load away from the client. Oracle Application server has built-in components which deliver high degree of scalability and consist of balancing, logging, automatic failure recovery, security, directory, and transaction components. The ERP based on Oracle is highly scalable and robust to handle volumes of clients requests concurrently. The Java Servlet Engine runs in a multithreaded environment and can process numerous client requests at one go. Hardware Infrastructure Server Sun Fire x4540 The Sun Fire x4540 storage server delivers 2 to 3 times the storage density of traditional solutions the maximum data throughput at 3 GB/sec from disk to memory, and 30% to 50% power savings at almost half of the total cost  [5]  19. The specifications of Sun Fire x4540 620 Software Oracle database will be the relational database management system installed on the server. The actual Oracle 8i will be upgraded to Oracle 9i standard Edition. Operating System Solaris 9 Operating Systems The Solaris 9 Operating environment is intended to sustain Multiprocessing multithreading. SUN Microsystems servers are designed from the ground to have Symmetric Multiprocessing. From Entry level workstation to SUNFire 15k (106 processors), SUN Microsystems employs the same architecture (UltraSparc) and Solaris OS. Also, Solaris OS is less prone to Virus attacks unlike other Operating systems  [7]  21. The Solaris platform supports; One million simultaneous processes on a single system Up to 128 CPUs on a single system More than four billion network connections 32- and 64-bit applications Two-, four-, and eight-node clusters IPv4 and IPv6 network addresses Up to 512 CPUs in a clustered environment Client Hardware The client should be linked to the server through a local area network and have the following minimum configuration: 1 processor core 2 duo 3.00 GHz 1 GB RAM 320 GB HDD Software and Operating System The client PC should be loaded with Explorer 8.0/higher or Mozilla Firefox 4.0 and should have one of the following OS: Windows XP, or Windows 7. Communications Computers and communications equipment can be connected in networks for sharing voice, data, images, sound, or even video. It is to be noted that the number of user at the company will be 60 persons. In the existing environment 30 data points are being used and with speed up to 10 mbps (megabits per second), and the proposal is to move to 100 mbps, using 60 data points, assuming that their will be 60 users. The company will need cabling whose speed is up to 100 mbps at an affordable price. Secondly, there are routers device that forwards packets of data from one LAN to another. Local Area Network (LAN) are recommended for applications transmitting high volumes of data and other functions requiring high transmission speeds, including video transmissions and graphics. LANs often are used to connect PCs in an office to shared printers and other resources or to link computers and computer-controlled machines in factories  [8]  22. Application Software Oracle Financials for Accounting Software Oracle Integrated Payroll/HR System Application supporting BS7799 Information Security Standard Information is an asset that, like other business assets, has value to an organization and consequently needs to be suitably protected. Information Security protects information from a wide range of threats in order to ensure business continuity, minimize business damage and maximize return on investment and business opportunities. Information can exist in many forms. It can be printed or written on paper, stored electronically, transmitted by post or by using electronic means, shown on films and spoken in conversation. Whatever form the information takes, means by which it is shared or stored, it should always be appropriately protected. Information security is characterized as the preservation of: Confidentiality: ensuring that information is accessible only by those authorized to have access; Integrity: safeguarding the accuracy and completeness of information and processing methods; Availability: ensuring that authorized users have access to information and associated assets when required. Figure 5 Source: BS 7799-2/2002: ISMS Specifications with Guidance for Use Increasingly, organizations and their information systems and networks are faced with security threats from a wide range of sources, including computer-assisted fraud, espionage, sabotage, vandalism, fire or flood, sources of damage such as computer hacking and denial of service attacks have become more common, more ambitious and increasingly sophisticated. The following diagram suggests a structure for the ten domains of the standard. Each domain deals with a separate topic built around administrative, technical and physical measures and driven from the top down, in other words such that its impact is felt from the management level all the way to the operational level. The 10 main control points of BS 7799 are: 1. Security Policy To provide management direction and support for information security. 2. Organizational Security To manage information security within the company 3. Asset Classification and Control To maintain appropriate protection of corporate assets 4. Personnel Security To reduce risks of human error and ensure that users are aware of information security threats 5. Physical and Environmental Security To prevent unauthorized access to information 6. Computer Operations Management To ensure the correct and secure operation of information processing 7. System Access Control To control access to information 8. System Development and Maintenance to protect the confidentiality, authenticity and integrity of information. 9. Business Continuity Planning -To ensure business continue to operate from the effect of a disaster 10. Compliance To avoid breaches of any criminal or civil law Technical Design Requirements The current system runs as three distinct and separate databases (Human Resource Payroll system, Finance Accounts system, and Inventory Management system). Currently, Velogic Airlines Limited has separate, elements in all three systems; examples include the definition of departments and divisions, which is handled manually now. While they try to maintain consistency, the systems do not demand it, so they cannot easily pull department costs across the Human Resource Payroll, Finance Accounts, and Inventory databases. Departments should be defined only once and used by all data elements. Similarly, Human Resource data on employees should only be defined once on a master screen and all databases use this same information. The proposed modules for ERP are: Human Resource and Payroll System Finance and Accounting System Inventory Management System Systems Interconnection Diagram The figure below shows the interconnection of the three modules and gives a brief description of the systems that will support Velogic Airlines Limited main activities and their requirements. Payroll System Human Resource and Payroll System Human resource and payroll systems help business develop staffing requirements; identify potential new employees; maintain employee records; track employee training, skills, transportation (allowances), salary, overtime and job performance; and help managers develop appropriate plans for employee compensation and career development. ERP systems help the company coordinate their staffing levels with sales activities and financial resources. Employee Details Basic Information on: Surname, Name, Maiden Name, Marital Status, Gender, Date of Birth, Age, NID, Social Security Number, Telephone Number, Residential Address. Manage Recruitment process Leaves management Sick Leaves, Casual Leave, Computation of Annual Leaves, Refund for Contract Officers, Maternity Leave: Study Leave, Leave without Pay, Leave with Pay: Record and Listing, Miscellaneous Leaves: e.g. Injury / Special Leaves: Record and Listing Staff Development Plan Database of qualifications: Professional! Academic/Vocational possessed by Staff. Record of all training programmes provided to Velogic Airlines Limited staff. Performance Management Monitor employee competencies for career planning. Payroll Basic Salary + Gross Salary Allowances paid by Type, e.g. Acting / Responsibility, etc Overtime paid Record of all Staff having received Incremental Credits Record of all Staff eligible to Uniform Allowances Deductions made Car Loan entitlement: Staff entitled to Car Loan and Amount Other categories of staff eligible to Car Loan 2) Finance and Accounting System Finance and accounting systems help firms keep track of their assets and fund flows. ERP systems integrate financial information with productions and sales information so that the impact of transactions can be immediately reflected on the companys balance sheets, accounts receivable and payable ledgers, and reports of cash flows. ERP systems will help to obtain up-to-the-minute reports of the companys overall financial performance. The accounting system should be operated on an integrated standard accounting package incorporating the following modules/functions: [23] General Ledger Purchasing Accounts Payable Accounts Receivable Fixed Assets Register A. General Ledger The system should also provide for: Unlimited number of sets of accounts for as many divisions as required. Balance forward facility creating new year open balances All journal entries should automatically balanced Cash movement report to show the net in flow/out flow of cash Financial statements and reports such as the Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet and Sources and Support for VAT Tax system. Rate of VAT must be more definable. The general ledger system should allow analysis of transactions by cost  ­centres at division as may be appropriate. B. Purchasing The purchase order processing system should integrate with the general ledger, purchase ledger and stock control systems. The system should provide for: identification of suppliers by name, product, order number, etc monitoring of purchase orders checking of purchase invoices against orders and deliveries for quantities and price report on outstanding orders, purchase and overdue deliveries link multiple purchase orders or Goods Received Notes to a supplier invoice C. Accounts Payable The purchase ledger should integrate with the general ledger and the purchase order processing systems. It should provide for: Unlimited number of suppliers accounts Recording and analysis of credit purchases returns and adjustments in accordance with user defined Analysis codes The recording of payment due date for each purchase invoice for settlement within credit period Printing of checks as per Velogic Airlines Limited format Support for VAT Tax system. Rate of VAT must be more definable. D. Accounts Receivable The Debtors Ledger system should integrate with general ledger system and provide for: Unlimited number of customers accounts The recording and analysis of credit sales in accordance with user-defined analysis codes Debtor classification by category Automatic generation of invoices Support for VAT Tax system. Rate of VAT must be more definable. E. Fixed Assets Register It is desirable that the Fixed Assets register be integrated with the general Ledger but, this is not an essential requirement. The system should provide for the following: User defined fixed assets codes as well as analysis codes for divisions, location, and types of assets, etc. Calculation of depreciation using either straight line or written down value methods Re-evaluation of assets Memorandum entries for each asset to keep track of the assets profile from acquisition to disposal in terms of maintenance, repairs, insurance, down-time replacement date, on loan 3). Inventory Management System Since the inventory system is a perpetual system, all transactions are posted at the time of entering, regardless of the transaction date. Therefore, if an inventory valuation is required for month-end, this report must be produced at the last working day after all current month transactions are posted and before any transactions f

Photography Essays Art and Media

Photography Essays Art and Media Using examples, discuss the relationship between art and the mass media. Introduction: The relationship between art and media has always been heavily symbiotic, a fact acknowledged only relatively recently, with the ironic wink of â€Å"pop† art in the fifties, but nevertheless the connection has always been present and empowering to both â€Å"high† culture and society’s consumers. Consumer culture and art have invaded each other’s territories to the point where it has become impossible, at times, to tell them apart. The HBO television series, Sex and the City, for example, might be art reflecting life, or art informing life, or both, or neither – so many of the signifiers we use to recognise art, so many of the cause and effect relationships we took for granted, have become indistinguishable. On a theoretical level, the media has amplified artistic causes, for good or for bad, and sometimes where bad is anticipated, the media has been second-guessed or hijacked. On a practical level, forms of media broadcast have much in common with art forms, allowing for overlaps and ironic jokes, since modern technologies enable neatly replicable sign systems- the mass media is a hegemony, and iconography reproduces itself everywhere we look. One reaction to the standardization of imagery and the new lexicon of iconography came in the form of Pop art. Ironically, of course, Warhol’s replicable paintings have an iconographic currency all their own. By the 1970s pockets of subversion were appearing everywhere. Media activists called it â€Å"culture jamming†, the Situationist International called it â€Å"detournement† (â€Å"an insurrectional style by which a past form is used to show its own inherent untruth†) the Pistols called it Punk. But it was essentially the same. Culture jamming can be used to describe a broad range of subversive activity, from the work of graffiti artists to the radical ‘refacement’ of billboards by the Billboard Liberation Front, to pirate radio broadcasts. It is, essentially, an attempt to challenge the authority of the mass media through creative, and generally public, acts of resistance. Adbusters magazine employs culture jamming as its manifesto, transforming it into a social movement with the revolutionary aim of   â€Å"toppl[ing] existing power structures and forg[ing] a major rethinking of the way we live in the 21st century.† Their forceful sloganism, together with slickness of its design, raises suspicions and criticism. This is the rhetoric of a salesman, and there would indeed appear to be a contradiction between its anti-advertising objectives and its image-based editorial strategies. Nevertheless this is the first time that magazines have really subjectified the image, and a magazine which is not only about design but also a beautiful piece of craft itself, seems to sidestep the theoretical problem of hypocrisy, somehow.   The problem of design today is that it is more fascinated by the visual, as a realistic imitation or decoration, and not by the image as a subjective narrative and interpretive element. As a result of its internal dialogue, however, the image is more than a perception. It is a necessary construction on the brink of fiction, that reveals the dialectic of representation and presentation. Rick argues that the once homogeneous field of graphic design has â€Å"begun to separate into two distinct strands†. On one side there is professional practice in all its forms; on the other a field which he terms â€Å"design-culture graphics†. This territory is inhabited by designers doing their own, often self-initiated thing: publishing books and magazines, starting websites, and designing and selling T-shirts, posters, DVDs, etc. He refers to Adrian Shaughnessy’s observations in April 2003’s Creative Review magazine: â€Å"Stylistically it is usually radical, adventurous and sometimes even downright purposeless.† The curious aspect of this claim is the suggestion that the divide has only just happened. Looking back to Morris and Ruskin, again, we see an extraordinary sort of proto-punk for the middle classes, even at the turn of the century. More recently, the division became a true social cleave, rather than an ideological romantic whimsy, with the new wave that followed punk in the late 1970s. Designers such as Brody, Saville, Malcolm Garrett, Rocking Russian and 23 Envelope were so notable because, not only did they shun the mainstream in which designers would once have expected to find work as a matter of course, but they also produced the most inventive and durable British graphic design of the period. Their audience was other young people. In Britain today, a vast number of young designers emerge from design schools and art colleges today with no intention of joining design’s mainstream. People today want to express their individualism in their work and the thought of a small, informal collective started by a group of friends is obviously attractive as it’s a sort of extension of student life. Graphic design played an important role as a tool of empowerment for those whose fringe status was less of a choice, too it gave voice to women and articulating their concerns.  The suffragette’s contribution to the history of graphic design has been intriguing. Unlike the emancipatory and utopic vision of the modernist movement, the images of the women’s movement never prescribed to a unifying aesthetic dogma. When seen in conjunction with other social and counter-cultural movements that became symbolic of a certain stylistic representation, what is notable about the women’s movement is its lack of stylistic unity. While this wasn’t intentional strategy, it practically increased resistance to commodification. Much of today’s art is conceptually sophisticated enough to reflect both art and life, often anticipating its own responses. The characters in Sex and the City, the ultimate show about and because of commodification, consistently acknowledge social expectation, even if it has become their raison d’etre to buck those expectations. When the character Charlotte expresses regrets about not working it shows that she has internalized the message that she should work.   When she accuses Miranda of judging her she exclaims, You think Im one of those women . . . One of those women we hate who just works until she gets married! Here, Charlotte reveals her own view that women should be independent, demonstrating that she herself is conflicted. Her statement has feminist undertones, since it implies that women who change their lives, or who are primarily oriented to attracting a husband, sacrifice themselves and compromise their identities- appropriately, as this is exactly the fate the scriptwriters have in store for her. Charlotte’s emphasis on the â€Å"choice† defense as a feminist case is an oversimplification and a misinterpretation of liberal feminist goals, although it still promotes the critical sentiment that women are diverse, and that one womans decision of what to do with her body or her life should be in her hands, in spite of what her friends, family, or society dictates.Yet, at the same time it highlights some of the problems associated with liberal feminism as a perspective and its frequent misappropriation by women- and perhaps, in this case, the Sex and the City scriptwriters. Liberal feminism is based on the idea that differences between women and men cannot be explained by biology and thus differential treatment is unjust. The idea is that people should be regarded as individuals, rather than identified first as men or women, and should thus be able to make decisions based on what is best for the individual. As Montemurro has written, â€Å"In this episode of Sex and the City, when Charlotte refers to the womens movement, she seems to be referring to the idea that women have been liberated or freed from the constraints of patriarchy and are able to work and attain success at levels similar to those attained by men. Thus, she has the right to decide for herself what will make her happy and satisfied as an individual. If she chooses not to work, then she is not succumbing to traditional feminine expectations; rather, she is doing what she sees as right for her and thus she should not be judged for this.† She goes on to point out that few women have the ability to make this choice. But the whole debate about choice can be located in the context of oppression; in Montemurro’s terms, â€Å"Charlottes choice is predicated on other womens lack of choices†. In addition, Charlotte even states that Trey suggested she stay at home, hinting that the idea to stop working has not come directly from her. The criticism of feminism’s reactive quality applies here: her choice may be â€Å"her perogative† but it is not solely hers, and the specific choice she has(n’t) made stands for the â€Å"choice† (either to stay at home or not) that all women make, with its attendant vulnerability to accusations of reactiveness and passivity. As Montemurro suggests, Charlotte’s powerful, wealthy husband has delivered the option to her â€Å"as a gift of sorts, as if to say, I give you permission to stay home, and Charlotte fails to acknowledge that her choice is made possible only by her subsequent economic dependence on her husband.† Charlotte’s statement that â€Å"the woman’s movement is about choice† is played as distastefully comical, distasteful not least because the scriptwriters are conveying one of two equally dangerous messages. Either they are communicating they notion that it is sufficient lipservice to feminism to give these issues crass and simplistic treatment, or they are expressing Charlotte’s charming naivety through the incidental note of a â€Å"feminist† token. It is as though she believes that any choice- motherhood, career, or taking a cooking class, is of equal value, because the decision is coming from herself. It is a claim made cynically by the media and advertisers, specifically designed to manipulate women who believe themselves to be independent into buying products that appeal to their vanity- products sold on graphic representations of self-indulgence, selling the irresistible idea that women are wallowing in low self-worth and deserve to â€Å"tr eat themselves.† Women’s liberation has become suspect precisely because of this bastardization: the idea that â€Å"free choice† includes â€Å"bad choices†, that female freedom is the equivalent of justified narcissism. Increasingly products, weight loss and fashion have been artificially presented as aids to a deserving woman’s betterment, taking â€Å"feminist† ideas of â€Å"improvement† as their selling point- yet feminists concur that all such strategies only help women to participate in their construction as subservient, imperfect, and generally oppressed. Her infertility is treated with same astonishing crassness, as Tara Flockhart points out, â€Å"The infertility of Charlotte†¦excruciatingly painful affliction, is at first mocked by suggesting that she sublimates her emotional pain in affection for her dog (the animal, not the man, in her life)† Of course it is not merely female â€Å"issues† which are levied by the media. According to feminist artist and writer Laura Mulvey, the female form is still a battleground for viewing conventions, and it is a battle where, for the most part, media images and visual art are on the same side. For Mulvey, the problem is the equivalence of the female form with desire so long as the male body is not seen as desirable, men remain in control of desire and the activity of looking. It seems to be a commonly held assumption that things are improving, but I would suggest, the male body is more prominently â€Å"objectified† by the media nowadays not as a symptom of female control over the gaze but as a direct result of the integration of the gay male gaze into the mainstream. This is rapidly overtaking the rise of women, and these sites of homosexual desire are not replacing images of women but are appearing alongside them. It is no improvement at all. Most images of attractive male bodies in the media today aren’t the result of feminist struggle for equality, but simply more men, gay men, expressing their own desires in public. Virtually everywhere in Hollywood (not to mention the internet, TV, magazines, the High Street) we find Freud’s notion of â€Å"scopophilia† the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as erotic objects. Mulvey has written extensively on viewing conventions as she perceives them to be facilitated by the cinema auditorium itself. The darkness of the picture-house provides a unique public environment where we may look without being seen either by those on screen by other members of the audience. Mulvey details how certain cinema viewing conditions facilitate for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen. There would be no post-modernist art responses to the media, of course, without the massively influential modernist movement that rocked the world at the turn of the century. Long before the Sex and the City girls, modernism aimed to expose traditional society as exposed as something fraudulent. The exponents of the modern aimed to show that nostalgia was fallacious: the unity of a golden age had never existed. The modernists only ever wanted to present reality as it was. Since social, political, religious, artistic ideas had been incorporated into this false order, they had to be incorporated into any true reworking of it. It was modernism that impressed upon us the idea that narrative direction- that a story should have a beginning, middle and end was nothing more than an opiate, artifice grafted onto random existence to create illusions of consistency. Conclusions The relationship between media and forms of art is of course not entirely co operative. The mass media has been understood as the servant of capitalist society, and art, as the archetypal â€Å"free thought† its natural enemy. Historically, art’s efforts to bring down capitalist structures from within have been very ill-fated, with artists finding themselves ignored, scorned, crushed or – perhaps worse- accessories to political agendas. Artists and writers must work harder than ever to devise means of opposing or exposing capitalism’s deceptions, but many commentators appear to have reached the conclusion that the battle is barely worth fighting. Jean Baudrillard argues that criticism of the status quo is no longer possible through art or literature and that the only efficient way of dissenting from capitalist society is to commit suicide, Modern art wishes to be negative, critical, innovative and a perpetual surpassing, as well as immediately (or almost) assimilated, accepted, integrated, consumed. One must surrender to the evidence: art no longer contests anything. If it ever did. Revolt is isolated, the malediction consumed. Thus the avant-garde movements in Europe put the artist under pressure to exhibit a certain individuality, while also – rather contradictorily- being a producer, and as prolific, political and reactionary a producer as possible,   There is a lot of talk, not about reform or forcing the Enlightenment project to live up to its own ideals, but about wholesale negation, revolution, another new sensibility, now self- affirming or self-creating, rather than a universalist or rational self-legitimation. This in turn suggests a tremendously heightened role for the artist, the figure whose imagination supposedly creates or shapes the sensibilities of civilization. In a sense, the avant-garde has been socially commissioned to forecast the future, to scouting out new intellectual terrain, Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future. The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured Modernity saw its role as declaring its fragmentary reality, its construction, or the construction of the world or idea it aimed to represent. As one writer says, â€Å"A typical modernist story will seem to begin arbitrarily, advance inexplicably, and end without resolution. Symbols and images are used instead of statements. The tone is ironic and understated-mocking of any of its characters or elements that still seem to appeal to the idea of coherent reality. On the other hand, many modernist works are structured as quests for the very coherence they seem to lack. Because the quest is a very mythological concept, a lot of modernist writers return to and rewrite myths of the world into their works. Often the faith based on myths (such as Christianity) is apparently revealed as a farce and a fraud-that is, as myth rather than objective reality.† Without Modernism’s take on the media, its distaste with media stereotypes, there would be no ironic art forms, and without Surrealism’s great achievement, its ability to assimilate its patterns so completely into our unconscious that its images have become a part of us, without this we would have no impressive, delicious, advertising and no self-perpetuating consumer society. It knows our dreams, but it also knows our nightmares. Surrealism may be the triumphant rebellious child of modern art, but it is the heir of capitalist society. As one writer puts it, â€Å"Historically, surrealism was an art movement of ideas that developed between World Wars I and II and was very prolific. However, today the viewer automatically accepts surrealist imagery. Its everywhere we look. One can find surrealism in childrens books, on television, in advertisements, music videos, movies and any other form of mass media. Today a person can see examples of surrealism everywhere without consciously noting that one is looking at a surreal image† Bibliography Bataille, George. The Lugubrious Game in Visions of Excess, US: University of Minnesota Press (1985) Breton, Andrà © Manifestoes of Surrealism, trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane US: Ann Arbor, (1969) Burger, Peter and Block, Richard, The Thinking of the Master: Bataille Between Hegel and Surrealism US: Northwestern University Press (2003) Burgin, Victor (Ed.) (1982): Thinking Photography. London: Macmillan Burgin, Victor (1982): Photographic Practice and Art Theory. In Burgin (Ed.), op. cit., pp. 39-83 Burgin, Victor (1982): Looking at Photographs. In Burgin (Ed.), op. cit., pp. 142-153 Derrida, Jacques. Specters of Marx: State of Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, UK: Routledge (1994) Descharnes, Robert and Neret, Giles, Dali: The Paintings UK: Taschen (2001) Drew Heath Johnson Inspiration and Influence: The Visions of Ansel Adams, on http://www.museumca.org Flockhart,TSex and the City gets a feminist analysis   The Daily Iowan Published: Thursday, December 2, 2004 Gott, Ted. Lips of Coral: Sex and Violence in Surrealism, in Surrealism: Revolution by Night, exh. cat. (Canberra, 1993) Habermas, Jurgen in Holub, Robert. Jà ¼rgen Habermas: Critic in the Public Sphere, London: Routledge, (1991) Hardie, Philip Ovids Poetics of Illusion Cambridge:   Cambridge University Press, 2002.   pp. viii, 365 Kristeva, Zoe Artistic Rebellion: The Modern Dynamic in The Philosopher, Volume LXXXIV No. 1 Playboy Interview: Ansel Adams -150; candid conversation, Playboy vol. 30, no. 5 (May 1983), p. 68. Montemurro, Beth. Charlotte Chooses Her Choice: Liberal Feminism on Sex and the City in http://160.39.101.217:8080/ramgen/women/montemurro.rm Sekula, Allan On the Invention of Photographic Meaning Artforum 13:5 (January 1975), reprinted in Vicki Goldberg, Photography in Print (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1981), pp. 452-73 Sheppard, Richard, Modernism, Dada, Postmodernism, US: Northwestern University Press (2000) Short, Robert. The Age of Gold: Surrealist Cinema, US: Creation Books (2002) Tagg, John. The Burden of Representation: Essays on Photographies and Histories. Amherst: Massachusetts UP (1988) http://web.mala.bc.ca/atkinsona/112-11%20modernism.htm http://www.usc.edu/schools/annenberg/asc/projects/comm544/library/images/742bg.jpg http://www.massurrealism.com/about/ http://www.stewarthomesociety.org/artstrik.htm

Waiting for Godot, Hollow Men and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock :: comparison compare contrast essays

Compare Waiting for Godot, Hollow Men and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Life is occupied by waiting.   In Waiting for Godot, Samuel Becket presents the suffering of the human condition.   Godot is about two beings who talk about nothing, experience the drudgery of life, complain that they do not do anything, meet a few people, think about hanging themselves, and then do it all over again.   The existentialist style by Godot is comparable to T.S. Eliot's works.   Eliot's Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and Hollow Men are about the tormenting cycle of life and death.   The connection among these three works is that people want to and should do so much, but they do not.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Waiting for Godot takes place in a rural area, with just a tree in the background.   The two friends Vladimir and Estragon talk aimlessly and complain about life.   They consider hanging themselves, but realize before they do that they should consult with Godot.   Who or what Godot symbolizes remains a mystery, but their whole existence seems to be to wait for Godot. They meet a couple of fellows: Pozzo, an upper-class man, mistaken by Vladimir and Estragon as Godot, and Pozzo's slave, Lucky.   After they leave, a messenger from Godot arrives and states simply that Godot will arrive tomorrow, same place, same time.   They consider leaving, but do not.   The second act is almost an exact repeat of the first, but Lucky and Pozzo have fallen upon hard times.   Pozzo has become blind and pathetic, and Lucky has become dumb.   This change in events is a direct point of life being terrific one moment, and worthless the next.   Godot never shows up.   The play ends with the two considering to go somewhere, but they do not.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The similarity of this play to Eliot's poem is remarkable.   Eliot's Love Song is in the first person point of view, and this person refers to " you," who is probably a woman.   It is about a man who want to do so much - be with pretty woman, make something of his life.   His flaws are many, though.   He realizes he is getting balder and more wrinkled.   His prowess with women is deteriorating and this disturbs him.

College Should Not be a Playground :: College Admissions Essays

College Should Not be a Playground University students today have it pretty good. At decent-sized schools, students have access to any number of low-cost services that civilians would donate organs for. We get gyms and fitness centers for free or close to it. We have computer labs, lounges and more clubs and societies arriving every semester. With little or no fees, on-campus coffee bars and pick-up basketball games make traveling into the real world increasingly ludicrous. Sure, we pay more in tuition rates to help off set the cost, but college students these days shouldn't sweat the bill's bundled-in activity fees - it's simply worth it to fork over a little extra cash for the added convenience. Besides, with college rates continually on the rise, these resource charges amount to a drop in a very large bucket. On the other hand, shouldn't a University provide for its students without bleeding them dry? After all, without the learners, the educators and administrators would be jobless. So why should students pay for access to increasingly basic and common services? Students have come to expect these tasty perks, as if our Universities owe us for passing through their hallowed halls. But have we come to expect too much? Do we truly deserve extravagant bonuses? My own school has for years given students free, unlimited, high-speed access to the Internet. All rooms in all dorms have long had an Ethernet port, intended to help us with our studies. Any student can plug in, call up the library's extensive database subscriptions, and hunt for journals, articles and other information on a boundless range of topics. Of course, with such power comes responsibility, for students can also visit the seedier and less, shall we say, academic nooks of the World Wide Web. In light of this, UMD began cracking down on Internet access and Networking capabilities on campus last year. First, the students' file-sharing capabilities were restricted. Many students grumbled, but the administration remained firm. Most recently, filters blocked the transfer of certain controversial file types. Student outcry led to a scaled-back version of the sentinel software, but the students haven't finished crusading. The school, they say, has infringed on our rights by installing restrictive programs between the Internet and us. University literature promises "free, unlimited" Internet access, and

Frankenstein and the monster Essay

â€Å"How far should we feel pity for both Frankenstein and the monster? † Essay By looking carefully at the arguments both for and against feeling pity for Frankenstein and his monster, it is easy to see that we should feel much pity for both. The â€Å"monster† was brought to life on a dark night and thrown into unwittingly into the wide world; a world in which he was forced into solitude due to the neglect of his creator and the rejection of all who saw him. For the whole of his life he was spurned by all who lay eyes on his skin-deep ugliness because their judging minds could not see the person who lay beneath. According to the monster, as he tells Frankenstein whilst talking to him, â€Å"You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being†. All he wanted was a small amount of love and affection from anyone or anything. This shows he has some human feelings and makes the reader empathise with what Frankenstein’s monster has to cope with. The constant rejection the monster receives in the end drives him, the reader believes, to make the ultimate sacrifice, to stop the pain that tears through his body; he wanders off into the snow, where the reader thinks he commits suicide. This ends the suffering and enables him to rest easy for first time since his birth. Others may disagree and say that Frankenstein’s monster was created from the body parts of criminals and therefore could be nothing but evil himself. Using the murders he commits this point could perhaps be justified. The monster kills the completely innocent William and effectively kills Justine as well, by cruelly framing her for his murderous deed. As we find out in the monster’s story he now thought that â€Å"From hence forth, evil be thou my good. â€Å", showing him as nothing but wicked. Furthermore he later murders Frankenstein’s father, before utterly destroying Frankenstein’s last chance of happiness, killing his wife Elizabeth on their wedding night. Having had everything stolen from him, Frankenstein enters a state of despair, where the only thing he has to live for is the need to destroy his creation. The monster had done no good in his life, only ruined Frankenstein’s. Then in an act of running away from all he had done and giving up because the death of his creator gave him nothing else to live for, he took his own life. The conclusion you could then reach from everything he did, is that he therefore deserves no pity from anyone. Though these are completely valid points, there is a different way to look at it. The terrible things the monster did were brought on by the neglect and rejection he suffered, and not being allowed to have someone to love and care for. These are all things humans cannot deal with, making the reader feel more pity because of what he was driven to and the human needs and emotions he shows.

Analyze the impact of geography and economic Essay

Geography and economic activity often determine the future of any civilization. Here, one is forced to admit that most of the obvious differences among the ancient civilization can be drawn based on their geographical location and, of course, their economic history (Wells, 561). Let us take the example of Roman and Mesopotamian civilizations. Roman civilization is centered on a powerful city situated on the Capitoline Hills. In the beginning of Rome’s history, most of the people were either farmers or small-scale traders. When Rome expanded into central and southern Italy at the beginning of the Punic Wars, its policy-makers were faced with this fundamental question, â€Å"How do we protect our trade interests? † The answer was expansionism. Rome acquired territories in the East either by conquest or forced capitulation of kingdoms (for example, Bithynia and Pergamum). Rome’s economic interests led to the expansion of the Roman Republic. When this republic was becoming larger and larger, the need for a more despotic, efficient form of government was becoming a reality. From 88 B. C. to 31 B. C. , the Republic became an avenue of power struggle between powerful public officials. (Such necessity was never a probabilistic tendency, rather a deterministic one) Rome, in 100 B. C. was not yet a center of trade and commerce. As such, only by expansion can Rome protect its economic interests (Wells, 585). The Mesopotamian civilization is situated on the so-called ‘Fertile Crescent’ or the junction of the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers. Its geographical location was suited for trade and commerce. In fact, it was the center of trade in the Middle East, controlling the flow of goods from the ‘Far East’ to the Pillars of Hercules (Toynbee, 266). Hence, most of the city-states founded on the Fertile Crescent were prosperous and relatively peaceful. Wars usually occurred as a means of settling disputes among rulers of city-states. Expansionism was never an important issue. Unlike Rome, most of the city-states preferred to negotiate rather than engage in costly wars. For example, when Uruk defeated a powerful city-state in 1560 B. C. , it was faced with an important fundamental question, â€Å"Is it necessary to occupy the city-state? † The answer was an obvious no. Occupation only entailed increased cost and resentment from the local population. It was more rational to keep the city under constant political surveillance than to actually occupy it. Only at the time of Sargon that was political view radically altered. 2. What do surviving works (art or architecture) tell us about culture? Compare pagan art to Christian art and Greek art to Roman art. Art and architecture define the ideology and prevailing beliefs of particular historical periods (Zaide, 419). Historical periods here do not simply refer to space and time, rather to actual events conforming to specific ideologies (Zaide, 420). Art and architecture also define the way of life of particular groups of people located in specific milieu. Hence, one may argue that works of art generally reflect the exterior and interior tendencies of people; that is, works of art define the psychology and behavior of peoples. For example, the painting ‘The Night watch† (by Rembrandt) reflects the ideological resistance of the Dutch nation against Spanish imperialism. Christian art is essentially different from pagan art in two respects. First, Christian art rests on the twin principles of equality (not to be confused with the ‘equality’ espoused by the French Revolution) and simplicity (Zaide, 549). Early Christian art depicted the symbolic reign of Christ on earth; this is symbolic of the simplicity of Christian life. During the reign of Constantine the Great, Christian art (although still rests on the concept of simplicity) became the emblem of imperial authority and the Divine Trinity (note that early Christian art only depicted the image of Christ). Constantine the Great ordered the construction of great basilicas to proclaim this new interpretation of Christian art. Second, Christian art centered on a single set of ideology. Christian art and philosophy centered on the nature of the Divine Trinity, the simplicity of Christian life, and the majesty of the Roman Church. Pagan art was a ‘hot spot’ of eastern, Greek, and Roman religious philosophy. Pagan art was simply the result of the mixture of pagan philosophies. Roman art is different from Greek art in two respects. First, Roman art was generally a modification of Greek art. The invention of concrete during the 1st century A. D. greatly advanced Roman art and architecture. For example, the simple amphitheatre of the Greeks was transformed into a colosseum. Concrete allowed the construction of more complex structures. Second, Greek art was essentially religious in character (this is assertion is debatable for some historians). Roman art and architecture was a mixture of religious and political philosophies. Works Cited Toynbee, Arnold. A History of the World. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1964. Wells, Herbert. An Outline of History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947. Zaide, Gregorio. History of Art. Manila: Manila Publishing Company.