Two generations before Aristotle wrote his celebrated treatise on what the nature of tragic mimesis (or imitation) is, the comic poet Aristophanes had written two plays about the subject, Thesmophoriazusae and the more celebrated Frogs. The first play has the poet Euripides as its hero, and the second the god Dionysus. This god is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman, and at a festival in his hon...

Firms frequently adopt new information systems (IS). To better understand IS adoption, research has been focused on motives for an IS adoption. In this study, three legitimacy-based motives (coercive, mimetic, and normative pressure) are examined for their impact on two success determinants (i.e., project management approach and team competence) and the subsequent impact of the success determin...

The evolution of speech can be studied independently of the evolution of language, with the advantage that most aspects of speech acoustics, physiology and neural control are shared with animals, and thus open to empirical investigation. At least two changes were necessary prerequisites for modern human speech abilities: (1) modification of vocal tract morphology, and (2) development of vocal i...

In this interview, Ruth Leys discusses her career as a historian of science and her research on contemporary developments in the human sciences, including Trauma: A Genealogy, From Guilt to Shame: Auschwitz and After, and her current work on the genealogy of experimental and theoretical approaches to the affects from the 1960s to the present. Among the topics she covers are her investigation of...

This article will examine how a post-realist aesthetics situated within a Baudrillardean realm of simulacra has come to dominate much of contemporary fiction. The excessive consciousness of the “real” as mere artifice leads many serious authors to engage in an ongoing mockery of mimesis. Yellow Dog (Martin Amis, 2003), Fury (Salman Rushdie, 2001), Dorian: An Imitation (Will Self, 2002), and The...

The extremely slow return movements observed in stick insects (phasmids) after imposed changes in posture are termed catalepsy. In the literature, catalepsy is treated as a behavioural component of the twig mimesis observed in walking stick insects. It is produced by the high gain of the velocity-sensitive component of the relevant joint control systems and by the non-linear dependency of its t...

This study adopts an institutional theory perspective of the adoption of ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems by medium sized firms in India. The study contributes to the understanding of the operation of the three isomorphic pressures: coercive, mimetic and normative, in the adoption of IS by moving beyond the common view of these as ‘monolithic entities’. The study is undertaken by mean...