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This qualitative study explored the phenomenological experience of cool as retrospectively reported. I proposed cool as a phenomenological concept and advocate for the consideration of cool as relevant to clinical psychology through first, a literature review of related academic research and second, by identifying the information gap around cool as it intersects with clinical psychology. I utilized Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to inform analysis and exploration of participant narrative responses collected through an online survey. Participants consisted of 25 individuals between the ages of 18 and 25 who endorsed having experienced cool at some point in their life. In sharing the findings, I first highlighted the emergent themes of the experience of cool that were most common across participant responses: cool is a positive experience, cool exists in a social context, possession of positive attributes, and challenging adversity/oppression. I also described individual voices that deviated or provided alternate ideas to those found in the emergent themes: (a) difficult to describe, (b) physical appearance, (c) emotional defense, (d) social status/superiority, and (e) denial of cool. Participants also described what makes others cool which includes positive personal attributes, affect regulation and confidence, and apathy to cool. I follow the reporting of findings by acknowledging my active role as researcher in the process of the research. Exploration of the findings in the context of existing literature of cool brings to light the possibility that cool describes multiple unique concepts that are often conflated and confused: cool when a first-person experience, cool as an emotional/interpersonal defense, and cool as label placed on objects in a social setting. Ongoing conflation of these cools may lead clinicians and caregivers to misinterpret adolescents’ behaviors when seeking cool. Misinterpreting the cool may result in misguided responses from adults in authority positions to youth behaviors and ineffective interventions to support youth across their development.

INTRODUCTION: The purpose of this study was to establish the ability of the Core Cooler device to prevent rises in physiological heat strain of trained male cyclists during cycling exercise in the heat. METHODS: 15 healthy male cyclists cycled at 50-70% VO2max for 75 minutes in a heat chamber of 31°C & 55% RH while breathing through the Core Cooler device under three different conditions: 1:4 ratio without ice termed control (CN), 1:4 ratio with ice termed low intermittent (LI), and at 1:1 ratio with ice termed high intermittent (HI). Data collected every 15 minutes assessing intestinal temperature (TGI), heart rate (HR), physiological strain index (PSI), blood pressure (BP), mean skin temperature (TSK), and perception of thirst, thermal sensation, and rate of perceived exertion, inspired air temperature, ambient temperature and relative humidity in all trials. VO2 workload and respiratory rates (RR) recorded three times at evenly spaced time points (12.30, 42.30, 1.12.30), during all trials respectively. Statistical significance was set at a p value of 0.05 and measured using repeated measures ANOVA and post hoc t-test. RESULTS: No statistically significant differences in diet, USG, temperature, %RH, VO2 workload, or RR were found between any trial. Inspired air temperature averaged significantly different between CNvsLI & CN¬vsHI (p0.05). HR (p=0.103), systolic BP (n=11, p = 0.102), diastolic BP (n=11, p = 0.190), TSK (n=5, p=0.464), thirst (p=0.773), thermal sensation (p=0.709), and RPE (p=0.669) were not significantly different between trials. CONCLUSION: Modifications to the Core Cooler device are needed providing greater inhalation capabilities of cool air during exercise in the heat for significant attenuation of physiological heat strain. The Core Cooler in its current form will not provide an adequate prevention to heat illness, prolong endurance capabilities, or enhanced performance to a significant degree. This research was funded by Core Cooler Company, LLC.

Cool has become the central tenet of postmodern consumption, defining the ways consumers interact with popular culture. Yet, the drive to produce cool media is not without its issues. Producers continue to push the envelope relying on spectacle and violence in order to capture the increasingly divided attention of an oversaturated market. These producers have started to return to an outdated worldview that stresses essentialism and otherness in an attempt to capitalize on global trends. In this thesis, I intend to explore how the recent film Sucker Punch utilizes images from Japanese popular culture in an attempt to be viewed as a cool film. In doing so, the film engages in a larger cultural discourse surrounding this idea of cool. The use of cool as a means of obscuring yet reinforcing ideology, Orientalism in particular, and the ways in which postmodernism assists in this process are key issues that I explore. In particular, I examine how Japanese imagery is contextualized within American media, the ways in which postmodernism functions as a cultural model that is still applicable today, and how cool has become the central issue within popular culture. By exploring these issues, this thesis addresses the dangers of the ideology of cool and the means by which it distracts audiences from underlying biases.

Thirty-three young Black men of the Post-Hip Hop Generation (ages 18-25) in Austin, TX, participated in a qualitative study centering on questions investigating Black manhood, media use, and the consumption of popular cultural products. Further, the researcher examined representations of Black men throughout music videos, films, and MySpace profiles. The purpose of this study was to enhance our knowledge about how Black manhood is being defined, conceptualized, and expressed by young Black men, and how significant media and cultural consumption plays a role in their lives. This study probes six questions: RQ1: How do young Black males interpret the images and messages about Black men from mainstream media? RQ2: What types of cultural products are being consumed by young Black men? Why do they consume them? RQ3: How do young Black males define Black manhood? RQ4: Do these cultural products influence the ways that young Black men define/express Black manhood? If so, how? Focus group sessions were conducted throughout the study, which were video recorded and transcribed. Transcriptions were then imported into a qualitative software program known as Atlas.ti, where statements related to the purpose of the study were coded and analyzed. These coded statements were then compared to observations made by the researcher from the examined media representations.

A collection of poems composed as an exercise with imagination and the attempt to convey the mind as medium for experience without forgetting the reader remembers something else.