Surprise

About: Surprise is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 4371 publications have been published within this topic receiving 99386 citations.

Emigration, return migration and surprise homecomings in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland

Abstract: This article explores the cultural and ideological management of mass migration in twenty-first-century Ireland, arguing that narratives of return have come to dominate representations of emigration. The almost universal focus on the moment or experience of return distinguishes the current era from other periods of high emigration in Ireland. The phenomenon of the surprise homecoming video is scrutinised alongside recent cinematic releases, newspaper articles, blogs and cultural events including The Gathering (2013) and the Marriage Equality Referendum (2015). By drawing these sources together, the article exposes how cultural representations of emigration have been shaped to fit with official narratives of a business-friendly nation in recovery. By repeatedly showcasing the emotional pleasures of return these popular culture forms support a fantasy of easy return and mask the real economic and social problems driving the latest wave of emigration.

From Ressentiment to Resentment as a Tertiary Emotion

Abstract: Resentment is a noxious emotion that can exist in sublimated form as a result of being subjected to inferiorization, stigmazation, or violence. In its active form, resentment can be a forceful response to acts that have created unjustified and meaningless suffering. We consider sociomoral conceptualizations of resentment by Adam Smith, Hume, and Levinas. Nietzsche and Scheler developed the broader notion of ressentiment, a generalized form of resentment arising out of powerlessness and the experience of brutalization neither forgotten nor forgiven. Resentment is seen historically as a sentiment that is saturated with frustration, contempt, outrage, and malevolence. Marshall described oppositional class-consciousness as permeated with resentment and anger, but resentment also contains the basic emotions of surprise and disgust. Resentment is linked to the concept of relative deprivation. A partial classification of emotions is used to further analyze resentment as containing three secondary-level emotions: contempt (anger & disgust), shock (surprise & disgust), and outrage (surprise & anger). Thus, resentment is conceptualized as a tertiary-level emotion, containing three primary and three secondary emotions.

Where is the love? art, aesthetics and research

Abstract: This paper discusses the use of different forms of artistic representation (poems, images, music, literature) to convey research findings. It theorises creativity as emerging from the precarious interplay between external and internal worlds that can surprise and demand invention and representation. Using examples from palliative care and ideas from post-structuralism and psychoanalytic aesthetics, the article examines the form and content of art works as encounters and events which can 'make way' for what is beyond immediate recognition and experience, both how things 'might be' and the 'not yet'. In tracing my own experiences of where artistic representations come from, I suggest that such representations can involve an emotional, sensual and corporeal opening out to others that involves the suspension of intellect. Through this discussion I argue that art can touch people and convey complex and incoherent notions of difference and otherness, precisely because of its ambiguities and insecurities of meaning. This ambiguity means that the lived experience of public presentation through and with art is always a gamble, based on risk and vulnerability for both the presenter and the audience. The basis of this mutual vulnerability is seen as productive and connective.

From Apprentice to President: The Role of Parasocial Connection in the Election of Donald Trump

Abstract: Data suggest that the outcome of the 2016 American presidential election was a surprise to most people. We conducted a study to examine the role parasocial bonds formed with Trump due to his appear...

The element of surprise: appreciating the unexpected in (and through) actor networks

Abstract: Purpose – This paper seeks to reflect on the importance of surprise in qualitative research on information‐technology initiatives. It also aims to consider how the use of social theory in the context of surprise can help to shape and guide field methods, data transformation, and substantive findings.Design/methodology/approach – The discussion is personal and reflective. The paper considers the significance of surprise surrounding events within two of the authors' own research projects. It also reports on a perusal of the literature for explicit treatments of surprise.Findings – Surprise in qualitative research is twofold. First, the research subjects experience surprise; indeed, surprise appears to be quite prevalent in IT‐related projects. Second, researchers too can be surprised in the course of their own work. Where these two kinds of surprise come together, one can find especially fruitful occasions for insight. In the authors' own projects, the element of surprise helped establish their respective c...