Digital Commons Network^™

Editor's Preface, Richard Utz

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Sports In The Teaching Of Culture And Civilization: Spain As A Case Study, Juan Castillo

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Most methodological approaches to the teaching of culture and civilization for second language students tend to have two things in common. First, they put an emphasis in history and high culture: fine arts, literature and film. Second, when they cover current events, they tend to take what I will call horizontal views of the civilization, trying to cover a wide spectrum of aspects of society, and not getting into an in-depth study of any of them.

This article wants to propose a different methodology on both counts. First, instead of focusing on high culture, I want to use an item …

E-Portfolios - An Effective Tool?, Marilyn Drury

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The effective use of electronic portfolios in educational institutions confirms their value as an important teaching and learning tool. An electronic portfolio is a digital archive or collection of artifacts (audio/video clips, text, graphics, and coursework) that represent the owner of the electronic portfolio, whether it is an individual, group, or institution. Personal reflection on one’s work or philosophies is a key element in many electronic portfolios. Some question whether electronic portfolios really benefit the educational process. This author overviews recent literature related to the use of electronic portfolios and discusses the issues and challenges of implementing and effectively using …

Career Paths: Not What You Might Think, Robert J. Frederick

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

From orientation through graduation, UNI’s Academic Advising and Career Services has the unique role of supporting academic, personal and career success for our students. One interesting component of our office operation is our contact with employers. Each year over 600 employers come to campus. They post over 7,000 job and internship opportunities on our electronic job posting board, CareerLink, and they routinely offer thousands more at our career fairs. In the 2005-2006 academic year, they conducted over 1,500 formal interviews on campus and thousands more of the informal type during and after our fairs. Each summer, we visit over 100 …

The Angers Summer Institute: Forty Years And Going Strong!, Anne Lair

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The following essay will explain how the Angers Summer Institute offered by the University of Northern Iowa started and what has contributed to its many successes for over three decades, such as the choice of courses, staffing and the importance of the host families.

The teaching of foreign languages in the United States can be characterized as having had many high and low points. Languages that were in vogue thirty or forty years ago have had to struggle in the past few years. Fifty or so years ago no self-respecting foreign languages department would have considered not offering latin. German …

The Nature Of The "In-Between" In D.W. Winnicott's Concept Of Transitional Space And In Martin Buber's Das Zwischenmenschliche, Laura Praglin

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Martin Buber (1878-1965), German Jewish social philosopher and theologian, and D.W. Winnicott (1896-1971), British pediatrician and psychoanalyst, portray in vibrant detail the reality of the “in-between”. Although contemporaries, they were separated by country and profession, and did not know each other. Yet both set forth in their writings remarkably complementary views concerning “in-between space”--the transitional area, to Winnicott, or das Zwischenmenschliche to Buber. This is a meeting-ground of potentiality and authenticity, located neither within the self nor in the world of political and economic affairs. In this space, one finds the most authentic and creative aspects of our personal and …

A Review By Chatham Carpenter Of Moral Courage, By Rushworth Kidder, April Chatham Carpenter

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

“Should I select a pragmatic, application-based text, to supplement the more traditional theoretical text, for the university capstone class I’m teaching for the first time this Fall? I want something that would be practical and make the students think about their own behavioral choices in situations involving ethics. But I also want something that will challenge them to think critically about a variety of ethical situations.” This was one of the dilemmas I faced when I was investigating what text to use as a supplementary text my first time through teaching the Ethics in Communication course as a university capstone …

A Review By Thomas Hockey Of Lincoln’S Melancholy, By Joshua Wolf Shenk, Thomas Hockey

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Students do not always approach professors’ offices for help with their homework. Or with questions about the upcoming test. Sometimes their visits are more confessional, with the goal being atonement for the “sins” of poor academic performance. One thing that I found striking in the just-completed school year was the number of young people who self-divulged their mental illness, or treatment for mental disorders. While such a revelation was a rare, every-year-or-two phenomenon for much of my teaching career, in 2005/2006 its frequency jumped tenfold.

Introduction: Forum On Masculinities, Violences, Variations, And Visions, Phyllis Baker, Harry Brod

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Debate and dialogue within the humanities and social sciences concerning the concept of masculinity/masculinities has been widespread for two decades. We use this edition of a Universitas Forum as a way to present and discuss the intriguing theoretical complexity of the concept of masculinity/masculinities. This forum is organized into three sections, focusing respectively on its relationship with the issue of violence, variations in forms and processes, and visions for transformations.

Men's Quest For Wholeness: The Changing Counseling Needs Of Paheka Males, Philip Culbertson

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In this essay I will claim that one of the most significant factors explaining the high levels of domestic and public violence in New Zealand is the definition of masculinity that Pakeha (descendants of white colonial settlers) men have inherited and the risks and demands for men who attempt to achieve it. In order to comprehend the extreme stress which the Pakeha definition of masculinity places on men, we need to begin by understanding how culture-specific every definition of masculinity (and femininity) is. Next we need to review how this Pakeha definition developed as a result of the history of …

Bad Ass Or Punk Ass?: The Contours Of Street Masculinity, Christopher W. Mullins, Robin M. Cardwell-Mullins

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In this article, we examine the utility of R.W. Connell’s conceptualization of hegemonic and subordinate masculinities through the examination of qualitative interviews with active criminal offenders in Saint Louis, Missouri. The article describes contours of “bad ass” masculinity, the hegemonic form, and “punk” masculinity, the primary subordinate form. After an examination of the nature of these masculinities, we discuss how these elements of the cognitive map of the streets are refractions of mainstream masculinities, exploring the convergences and divergences that emerged in the data. Finally, we point out how the work on masculinities is important to gender studies and feminist …

Hypermasculinity And Violence As A Social System, Thomas J. Scheff

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Current theories of conflict fail to develop an adequate model of the causation of violence. Greed for power is often invoked, but how greed itself develops is seldom considered. Particularly absent are models explaining the vast energy that propels violence and destruction. This essay will consider bases of greed and violence unleashed by alienation and repression of emotions. Since it appears that most men in our society are more alienated/repressed than most women, the idea of hypermasculinity is used to develop a theory of conflict. The combination of alienation with the repression of vulnerable emotions suggests a biosocial doomsday machine …

The Sorry Sons Of The Godfather: Intertextuality, Orality And Diminished Masculinities In The Sopranos, Harry Brod

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

When the enormously popular HBO TV series The Sopranos first premiered in 1999, it shared a core plot element with a film released about the same time, Analyze This, also successful and popular enough to later spawn a sequel, Analyze That. 1 They both revolve around the central image of a Mafia boss seeing a psychotherapist. This essay focuses on The Sopranos, and uses references to the contemporaneous Analyze This to bolster its case that a generational shift in images of masculinity is illustrated here. This essay draws exclusively on the first season of The Sopranos in order to isolate …

It'll Pass: Nypd: Blue's Sipowicz And Mundane Masculinity, Marc Ouellette

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The development of the character of Det. Andy Sipowicz, on the ABC drama, NYPD: Blue, effectively demonstrates that the obstinance of traditional forms of masculinity may ultimately be a key factor in their undoing. Rather than effecting a superficial change based on consumer choice, as concurrent characters do, Sipowicz undergoes a transformation of his social behavior. Sipowicz regularly behaves in a manner consistent with Robert Connell’s definition of “hegemonic masculinity”: he resorts to violence, he resists change and he resents women and minorities (131). His alcoholism and quick temper tend to hinder his ability to adapt. However, change has occurred …

The Enfleshment Of Masculinity(S): The Maintenance Of Hegemonic Masculinity, Brett N. Billman

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

With the proliferation of the term “masculinities” over the past two decades men’s subjective experiences have come to light in an attempt to destabilize the patriarchy. However, in this time it seems that hegemonic masculinity has in fact been attempting, quite successfully, to maintain itself through the proliferation of multiple patriarchies. Examination of the enfleshment of masculinity through the physicality of the masculine body presents us with a more articulated version of hegemonic masculinity. This more articulate view begins to highlight the politics of difference present in a discussion of Brokeback Mountain and the wide spread deployment and growth of …

Hang With The Dude, Jeffery Byrd

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The Greeks created idealized versions of themselves. But what good is making a perfect body if you are still schlepping around in the frumpy one you were born with?

In 2002, I designed an idealized version of myself that was wearable. The Dude is cool, hip, young and buff and not afraid to unleash his inner geek. He is totally at ease with who he is. In short, he was just what I wanted to be. And you may notice he is also short because I have honestly never had a problem with my height.

The Dude got around. He …

Female Like Me, Lynn E. Nielsen

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Following graduation, from the University of Iowa with a Ph.D. in elementary education, I clearly remember my aunt asking me very kindly but cautiously if when I completed my graduate work, could I get a “better job.” Of course I knew what she meant and I also understood where the question originated. Who ever heard of a man with a terminal degree teaching second-graders? Wasn’t that illegal or something? Wasn’t that “women’s work?” Wouldn’t I at least teach high school? Wouldn’t I take an administrative position or find a job teaching “bigger students.” The answer was a definitive NO. I …

Am I A Man Or A Feminist? Constructing Positive Male Feminist Thought, Cory Aragon

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Male Feminists find themselves in the weird position of opposing entrenched patriarchal gender hierarchies while effectively reinforcing them. The question arises, am I a man or a Feminist? This question is seated in a seemingly oppositional relationship between the culturally masculine, the culturally male, and the positive theory of Feminist thought.

In this paper, I attempt to provide a way of being both a man and a feminist. In the first section, I try to debunk the common notion of many Feminist separatist movements that the culturally male and masculine are destructive to the feminist cause. After showing that the …

Masculinities, Femininities, And Fundamentalisms: Gender Confrontations And Collaborations In Global Conflict, Joane Nagel

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In this multimedia presentation, I combine images and text to argue that organized violence in the global system depends on shared gender cultures, networks, and transactions: Wars are violent confrontations AND collaborations among men and manhoods. Contemporary conflicts are very often depicted as "clashes of civilizations," but in many important respects they are collaborations of masculine cultures and systems of honor. Although organized violence involves men on opposing sides of ethnic or class or national boundaries, ironically, such violence depends on cooperation both among allies and among enemies. Men join forces with comrades as bands of brothers, as men in …

“Imagine This:” Disengendered Fiction Writers, Susan M. Rochette

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

This article recites in brief a story the author wrote that caused conversation and reflection on behalf of herself, her teachers and her students over the years of her writing as a fictionist and fiction writing teacher. The point of the article is to both demonstrate by doing and to make comment on the issue of women writing in the masculine voice.

Contributors

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

What Happened When A Mathematician Found Himself Funded By The National Endowment For The Humanities, Joel K. Haack

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Exploring the relationships between mathematics and the humanities can be stimulating for both faculty and students. That there are connections should surprise no one in interdisciplinary studies, but finding them might prove to be more difficult; humanists and mathematicians have not been involved in extensive dialogue in recent years. This study provides a field guide to the kinds of connections that one might find with examples of each.

Editor's Preface, Richard Utz

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

A Review By Lynn E. Nielsen Of Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension Of American Racism, By James Loewen, Lynn E. Nielsen

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In his highly researched and documented book, Sundown Towns, James Loewen details a sad narrative of American race relations by concluding, "Until we solve the problem of sundown neighborhoods and towns, we do not have a chance of solving America's race problem."

Editorial: On Falling Into Medievalism, Richard Utz

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

No abstract provided.

A Review By Koch Of A Whole New Mind: Moving From The Information Age To The Conceptual Age, By Daniel Pink, Susan J. Koch

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Every once in a while an otherwise predictable academic meeting produces some exceptionally provocative discussion and perhaps even some long term effect. Such was the case at this year's annual gathering of U.S. Graduate Deans, where the Council of Graduate Schools had invited Daniel Pink to discuss his new book, A Whole New Mind, in the particular context of higher education's capacity to develop human talent. Pink's time spent with us was a fascinating intersection; one that has been much in my mind as we have been focused this year on creating a new strategic direction for graduate education …

Crossing The Timeline: Michael Crichton's Bestseller As Social Criticism And History, Linda Bingham

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

Michael Crichton's best-selling suspense novel Timeline combines futuristic science with medieval history, resulting in a remarkably successful and thrilling page-turner. By authoritatively blending academic arcana with fabricated scientific innovation, Crichton also convinces the average reader that the science in the novel is based on current scientific knowledge and that the medieval portions of the novel are based on solid historical research, which, for the most part, they are. Given the fantastic premise of the supposedly present-day science of quantum transportation between universes, one would expect the history-based sections of the book to have the stronger underpinnings. But, surprisingly, the plot …

Translitic Poems, Ron Sandvik

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

I am an Iowan, a child of the prairie, an American, and so as the joke goes obviously I'm a monoglot. One might ask, "Why the fascination with languages you clearly don't speak, and have no ambition of learning?" The truth is I don't know. It just is.

My family didn't start out speaking English. They were mostly farmers and small business owners who wrested the prairie into productive farmland who lost their polyglottism during WWII. In the same way Arab-Americans seem to always be suspect today, Germans, Norwegians, and Swiss, made it their business to find ways to show …

A Case In Which A Revitalization Of Something Medieval Turned Out Not To Be Medievalism, Mette B. Bruun

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

The Cistercian Order was founded in Burgundy, France, in 1098 in a wake of the reform-enthusiasm related to the so-called Gregorian reform. The Order saw a rapid success in the 12th century and spread through most of Europe not least thanks to its main figure, Bernard Clairvaux (1090-1153). Bernard was an influential man. He corresponded with princes and popes and engaged in a wide array of ecclesiastical causes and politics. He was constantly on the watch for heresy or relapse in whichever guise and persistently sought to drive his contemporaries into soteriologically safer havens: Cistercian monasteries, crusades, orthodoxy, or, if …

Sovereign Right, Democracy And The Rule Of Law, Artur Golczewski

UNIversitas: Journal of Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity

In the often hotly contested contemporary critical discourse, the related notions of individual and social identity, values and viable conduct continue to be the bone of contention, as their competing rationales sanction radically distinctive existential frameworks. The present essay employs some of the methodological strategies of the genealogical analysis as progressively refined by Ernst Kantorowicz and Michel Foucault, and it aims to chart a trajectory of historical applications and effects of the theory of sovereignty as the organizing principle coordinating our legal and socio-governmental rationales of value and of individual and social conduct. The principle governing Kantorowicz’s selection and consideration …