Stephanie Butler | University of Toronto (original) (raw)

Peer-Reviewed Publications by Stephanie Butler

Journal of International Women's Studies, 2018

This article was short-listed for the Feminist and Women's Studies Association (of the U.K. and N... more This article was short-listed for the Feminist and Women's Studies Association (of the U.K. and Northern Ireland) Student Essay Prize and will be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of International Women's Studies. It examines representations of Anderson shelters in English women’s Second World War epistolary correspondence, arguing that both the adaptation of shelters and the representation of these changes—as depicted in women’s correspondence—evidences wartime resilience. The article argues that the domestication of these spaces designed for protection, rather than comfort, resonates with pervasive wartime discourses articulating the cultural value of the home.

A short piece on how my research contributes to future directions in auto/biography studies.

Focusing on epistolary depictions of domestic dangers and children’s deaths, this article examine... more Focusing on epistolary depictions of domestic dangers and children’s deaths, this article examines how English women used letter writing to request support in response to traumatic wartime experiences. A theoretical framework is offered for understanding how letters function as a method of peer support; this framework combines Nancy Fraser’s theory of subaltern counterpublics, Lauren Berlant’s concept of intimate publics and Aimée Morrisons work on digital affective communities to understand how letters were emotionally beneficial to women. Next, by appealing to Narrative Psychiatry (John P. Wilson and Jacob D. Lindy, and SuEllen Hamkins) the author explores how various images and symbols within women’s correspondence demonstrate their efforts to process and articulate their experiences of trauma, anxiety, and grief, in response to wartime events. In closing, the author considers how witnessing as a collaborative activity between a speaker and a listener, as theorized by Dori Laub, is translated into women’s wartime epistolary relationships.
Key words: War Studies, Women’s Writing, Letters, Trauma Theories, Second World War, Auto/Biography Studies, Life-Writing Studies, Peer Support

a/b:Auto/Biography Studies 31.2 (forthcoming).

Using case studies, the author analyzes how people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue... more Using case studies, the author analyzes how people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome construct their subjectivities in the Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE), Second Life. The findings of the study reveal people’s anxieties about identity and belonging, especially where interlocking disadvantages such as economic class, gender, mental health, disability, and chronic illness influence who is accepted as a member of the support groups held in-world.

Space and Culture 18.2, Apr 18, 2015

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). Drawing o... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).
Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social support by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the
authors posit that virtual architecture needs to be designed to be inclusive to people with cognitive impairments. The ME/CFS Centre in Second Life allowed people who were socially
isolated to forge social support systems across geographical distances. However, technological issues interfered with the development of participants’ senses of community within the
virtual space of the ME/CFS Centre. These difficulties with the designed landscape reveal that theorizations, and applications, of geography and disability, and inclusive web design, need to
extend to the ways that virtual architectural structures are designed and furnished-if these spaces are to be inclusive.

The version here is a pre-print. The actual published article can be found in the journal or online at the journal site.

Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 27.6 (2013), 2013

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). In 2009... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

In 2009, a virtual reality support centre in the virtual world Second Life was constructed for people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome to determine whether a virtual reality setting could help alleviate the social isolation experienced by sufferers of this condition, despite the specific challenges technology presents to individuals with the illness. The results of the study suggest that the physiological effects experienced by participants while navigating their Second Life avatars necessitate a reconsideration of the relationship between the organic human body, psychoanalytic projections of the idealized or socially constructed body and technology. This paper examines the role avatars play as extensions of both the social and physiological bodies of users by combining phenomenological, cyberfeminist and psychoanalytic theory with recent findings in neuroscience.

Information, Communication, and Society 16.7 (2013), 2013

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). In this... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

In this article, the authors present results from an ongoing study of individuals with ME/CFS who are using the virtual reality site, Second Life, as a medium for social support networks. We expand on Norman, Hartson and Best’s categories of affordances by proposing an additional four tiered framework for the categorization of types of communication breakdowns that occur in human–computer
interactions. The four proposed categories are: human–computer; computer–network; human–network; and finally, technologically mediated human–human. This proposed mode of categorizing the data allows for a greater depth of analysis into the causes of complex communication errors, and participants’ reactions to these disruptions in relation to their experiences of control. Each of the four categories is assessed according to the types of affordances indicated in the technological issues and whether they were reported as positive or negative by the participants of the study. The information is then analyzed according to the categories of users’ attitudes toward technology. The final level of
communication error, that between human participants in technologically mediated conversation, leads to the positing of three categories of users: audio communicators; textual communicators; and flexible communicators. These conflicting communication preferences, or needs, are found to have a profoundly negative impact on group dynamics.

Disability Studies Quarterly 32.4 (2012)., 2012

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). The au... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

The authors analyze the impact of marginalizing discourses surrounding disability on the design of communication options in online and virtual worlds. The primary focus is on conflict between participants in an ongoing study in Second Life, based on audio versus textual communication needs. Although the participants in the study are diagnosed with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/ Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, the difficulties faced in facilitating communication between the two groups reveal serious problems with current modes of live chatting which privilege one sense over the other, which would be relevant to other disabled populations. The inability to blend
audio and textual communication creates an additional barrier for participants in the ongoing study in Second Life, and for visually and hearing impaired individuals who wish to use technology as a means of communicating with one another.

Conference Presentations by Stephanie Butler

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Locked-In Syndrome and the (Un)Ethics of Narrative as Personho... more The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: Locked-In Syndrome and the (Un)Ethics of Narrative as Personhood Jean-Dominique Bauby, editor of the French Elle, developed locked-in syndrome after a stroke at age 44. He could only slightly move his head and blink his left eye (the right one having been sewn shut because it stopped closing properly). Like many with the condition, he was fully conscious, but unable to communicate due to near total-body paralysis. Once Bauby's condition was recognized, his speech therapist developed a method of communication for him involving an interlocutor reading out each letter of the alphabet in order of frequency of use in the French language. Bauby blinked in response to the letter he wanted them to record. This method is how his memoir, The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly, was recorded by Claude Mendibil, his personal assistant.

A slightly revised and shorter version of the censorship paper I delivered in France. This paper ... more A slightly revised and shorter version of the censorship paper I delivered in France. This paper was for Vox Populi, the English and Cultural Studies department's graduate student speaking series at McMaster University.

This is a paper I gave at the Representing Modern War(s): Fields of Action and Fields of Vision I... more This is a paper I gave at the Representing Modern War(s): Fields of Action and Fields of Vision International Conference, hosted by the Research Group on Identities and Cultures, University of Le Havre, France, March 19-21st, 2014. The paper focuses on different kinds of censorship influencing British women's international correspondence during WWII. It has also been recorded as a sound file and stored at the University of Le Havre radio station.

Public Lectures by Stephanie Butler

You are warmly invited to attend a Gender Studies Research Group book group discussion on Virgini... more You are warmly invited to attend a Gender Studies Research Group book group discussion on Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway at the Newcastle City Library at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, March 2nd. In this discussion, PhD Candidate Stephanie Butler will lead us through a discussion of the ways Woolf's text responds to medical, political, and cultural attitudes towards shell-shock, trauma, and sexual orientations then considered deviant. Building on her past guest lecture at McMaster University and doctoral thesis research on Woolf's suicide from a Mad(ness) Studies perspective, Stephanie asks us to consider to what extent Woolf's grafting of her own symptoms and medical treatment onto a male war veteran anticipates later feminist advocacy for recognition of rape/sexual assault-induced Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Furthermore, given that the author had personal experience of mental illness and invasive treatment, and this experience informed her writing of a text in which the perspective of the shell-shocked soldier is privileged (in defiance of doctors), how can we think of Woolf's text in relation to Mad Pride History and contemporary autobiographical madness narratives?

Photographs of young working women permeated British visual culture of the war years, but so did ... more Photographs of young working women permeated British visual culture of the war years, but so did pictures of bombed out houses. Little attention has been given to women’s feelings about, and responses to, dangers posed to them within their houses by air raids. In this talk I describe some of the emotional impacts of air raids on women living in areas that received heavy bombardment. Referring to women’s letters (mostly unpublished), I explain how women’s letter-writing communities provided emotional support for these women which helped them to cope with the wartime dangers they faced.

Journal of International Women's Studies, 2018

A short piece on how my research contributes to future directions in auto/biography studies.

a/b:Auto/Biography Studies 31.2 (forthcoming).

Space and Culture 18.2, Apr 18, 2015

The version here is a pre-print. The actual published article can be found in the journal or online at the journal site.

Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 27.6 (2013), 2013

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). In 2009... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

Information, Communication, and Society 16.7 (2013), 2013

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). In this... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

Disability Studies Quarterly 32.4 (2012)., 2012

Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University). The au... more Authors: Dr. Kirsty Best (Murdoch University), Stephanie Butler (McMaster University).

In this presentation Stephanie will focus on the emotionally supportive communities created by Br... more In this presentation Stephanie will focus on the emotionally supportive communities created by British women in the U.K. through the exchange of letters among themselves, and with friends and relatives in Canada and the USA. More specifically, she examines the ways that women provided emotional support to one another with respect to the often pervasive threat--and reality--of home loss due to air raids. She argues that the social, and emotional, validation British women received from other women alleviated their feelings of anxiety, and helplessness, in the face of wartime housing problems such as increased safety precautions, air raid damage, and destruction. Ultimately, she asks how this information about women's support, and resiliency, in WWII can inform current debates about the place of Syrian refugees in the UK, EU and North America.

In this paper the author focuses on the need for further supports, and training, for Aboriginal m... more In this paper the author focuses on the need for further supports, and training, for Aboriginal midwives in Ontario. The alarming health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, including devastating stillbirth and infant loss rates, mean that more attention needs to be paid to Aboriginal women's experiences of, and health during, pregnancy and childbirth. The author advocates for the return of birth to communities, which means more funding for Aboriginal midwifery birthing centres and training programmes. Where hospital birth is necessary because of high-risk and low service provisions, hospitals are advised to incorporate culturally appropriate services (such as Elders and Midwives), and the government is urged to increase funding for families to visit or call so women are not alone when they give birth.

Introduction provided by the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal: In the Newcastle University ... more Introduction provided by the Newcastle Institute for Social Renewal: In the Newcastle University public lecture on New Voices in Social Renewal, postgraduate student Stephanie Butler presented her work on letter-writing during the Second World War. In this blog post, she challenges the overly simplistic histories of English wartime stoicism, and explores the true resilience of English women as they adjusted to living through war. In deepening our understanding of war displacement, we can let our past inform our present, with an empathy fitting for the modern age.

I discuss madness in Mrs. Dalloway, tracing a history of the development of medical approaches to... more I discuss madness in Mrs. Dalloway, tracing a history of the development of medical approaches to shell-shock or post-traumatic stress disorder/syndrome which are referenced in Woolf's novel. I am also interested in the ways that Woolf combined her personal experience of madness and treatment with political, medical, and cultural discourses surrounding the difficulties faced by shell-shocked soldiers in reentering English society post-war.

a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 2017

a/b: Auto/Biography Studies, 2016

ABSTRACT Using case studies, the author analyzes how people with myalgic encephalomyelitis|chroni... more ABSTRACT Using case studies, the author analyzes how people with myalgic encephalomyelitis|chronic fatigue syndrome construct their subjectivities in the multi-user virtual environment Second Life. The findings of the study reveal people's anxieties about identity and belonging, especially where interlocking disadvantages such as economic class, gender, mental health, disability, and chronic illness influence who is accepted as a member of the support groups held in-world.

Space and Culture, 2014

Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social suppo... more Drawing on the results of a study examining the use of Second Life as a platform for social support by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), the authors posit that virtual architecture needs to be designed to be inclusive to people with cognitive impairments. The ME/CFS Centre in Second Life allowed people who were socially isolated to forge social support systems across geographical distances. However, technological issues interfered with the development of participants’ senses of community within the virtual space of the ME/CFS Centre. These difficulties with the designed landscape reveal that theorizations, and applications, of geography and disability, and inclusive web design, need to extend to the ways that virtual architectural structures are designed and furnished-if these spaces are to be inclusive.

Information, Communication & Society, 2013

In this article, the authors present results from an ongoing study of individuals with ME/CFS who... more In this article, the authors present results from an ongoing study of individuals with ME/CFS who are using the virtual reality site, Second Life, as a medium for social support networks. We expand on Norman, Hartson and Best&amp;amp;#x27;s categories of affordances by proposing an additional four tiered framework for the categorization of types of communication breakdowns that occur in human–computer

Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, 2021

Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a common form of assessment in medical schools and students ... more Multiple choice questions (MCQs) are a common form of assessment in medical schools and students seek opportunities to engage with formative assessment that reflects their summative exams. Formative assessment with feedback and active learning strategies improve student learning outcomes, but a challenge for educators, particularly those with large class sizes, is how to provide students with such opportunities without overburdening faculty. To address this, we enrolled medical students in the online learning platform PeerWise, which enables students to author and answer MCQs, rate the quality of other students’ contributions as well as discuss content. A quasi‐experimental mixed methods research design was used to explore PeerWise use and its impact on the learning experience and exam results of fourth year medical students who were studying courses in clinical sciences and pharmacology. Most students chose to engage with PeerWise following its introduction as a noncompulsory learning opportunity. While students perceived benefits in authoring and peer discussion, students engaged most highly with answering questions, noting that this helped them identify gaps in knowledge, test their learning and improve exam technique. Detailed analysis of the 2015 cohort (n = 444) with hierarchical regression models revealed a significant positive predictive relationship between answering PeerWise questions and exam results, even after controlling for previous academic performance, which was further confirmed with a follow‐up multi‐year analysis (2015–2018, n = 1693). These 4 years of quantitative data corroborated students’ belief in the benefit of answering peer‐authored questions for learning.

Journal of international women's studies, 2018

This article examines representations of Anderson shelters in English women’s Second World War ep... more This article examines representations of Anderson shelters in English women’s Second World War epistolary correspondence, arguing that both the adaptation of shelters and the representation of these changes—as depicted in women’s correspondence—evidences wartime resilience. The article argues that the domestication of these spaces designed for protection, rather than comfort, resonates with pervasive wartime discourses articulating the cultural value of the home.