Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Counter Culture: A Brief Oral/Visual History Of Independent Record Shops, Lee Ann Fullington

Publications and Research

Independent record shops have long been focal points of local music communities. As online music becomes the new normal, the role of these shops is changing. Though many shops have disappeared, others continue to flourish as they have evolved to meet the tastes and demands of collectors, crate diggers, producers, and fans who prefer LPs to MP3s.

Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted in the early 2000s in the US and the UK, this presentation discusses the role and significance of independent record shops in various music scenes. Based on interviews with owners, staff, and customers, this talk is a …

Studies In The History Of Anthropology In The United States, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

I will talk about a study I did on the first persons to do Ph.D.s in anthropology and how the project led to my leaving the anthropology profession and becoming a librarian. The project began in a biographical study of a little-known anthropologist that involved archival work. As a librarian who has left the profession of anthropology (not without trauma), I remain keenly interested in the history and bibliography of anthropology and view dissertation projects as crucial to understanding the biographies of scholars and trends in academic professions.

Subjunctive Desires: Becoming Animal In Green Porno And Seduce Me, Cynthia Chris

Publications and Research

In the series of short films known as Green Porno and Seduce Me, the director and actor Isabella Rossellini becomes animal — insect, sea creature, bird, or mammal — to act the mating behaviors of non-human animals. Both educational and playful, each video begins which Rossellini imagining, "If I were ..." But not all becomings are knowingly desired. This essay explores Deleuze and Guattari's concept of becoming animal through Rossellini's series and Franz Kafka's iconic novella The Metamorphosis.

Portraits Of Children Of Alcoholics: Stories That Add Hope To Hope, Meagan Lacy

Publications and Research

This literary analysis examines the emergence of children of alcoholics narratives and their growth from "resource" texts to literary subgenre. While early texts offer useful information about parental alcoholism, they are also limited. Namely, they do not adequately mirror the diversity of children, families, and problems associated with parental alcoholism nor do they offer alternatives for children whose parents do not, or cannot, seek treatment for their addiction. Literature, on the other hand, in inviting what philosopher Martha Nussbaum refers to as "narrative play," can help children learn to understand and empathize with others, nourish their inner curiosity, and, most …

Roger Mcdonough: Nj State Librarian And Master Politician, Robin Brown

Publications and Research

Roger McDonough became New Jersey State Librarian in 1947, the first professional librarian to fill that role and at the head of a newly amalgamated agency. He was a consummate politician. During his tenure he not only managed to get a new State Library built next to the State Capitol, but he worked hard to upgrade library services in New Jersey, to create networks of library cooperation, and to bring state aid up to par. He was a gifted lobbyist, and spent a significant amount of time working with the ALA Washington office to get national programs of library aid …

If God Didn’T Satisfice, We Could Still Exist, Rick Repetti

Publications and Research

Theodicies of satisficing – defenses of God’s goodness that justify creating minimally satisfactory beings/worlds – originate with Robert Merrihew Adams (1972, 1979). Adams (1972) argued that in creating imperfect beings God was graceful in giving the undeserved gift of life. There have been many objections to Adams’s argument; e.g., Jerome A. Weinstock (1975) objected that God still would have been graceful in granting undeserved life to superior beings, and, among others, E. Wielenberg (2004) objected that grace doesn’t erase the imperfection of creating imperfection. However, Adams’s theodicy arguably maintains two points: (a) non-existing superior beings cannot be harmed by not …

Becoming American: Constructing Mexican Immigrants In Local Newspapers, Zheng Zhu

Publications and Research

Media representation of Latino immigrants has been extensively studied by scholars across diverse academic disciplines. Particular to the U.S. context, preceding scholarships pertaining to the ways in which Latinos were represented centered on the media representation of Latino immigrants either as the exotic racial other or undesirable foreigners. In light of the important role that the Mexican immigrants played in understanding the current national debate on illegal immigration and the overall historical experiences of immigrants in Washington State (WA), this study critically investigated how news articles published in WA represented Mexican immigrants. As a crucial point of departure from prior …

The Mathematics And Applications Behind Image Warping And Morphing, Tanvir Prince, Maria Malik, Ildefonso Salva, Ariel Mazor, Sakhr Aldaylam

Publications and Research

This research is conducted in the summer of 2015 and is possible by the support of various agency, in particular, by the grant of Prof. Angulo Nieves and the New York City Research Initiative.

The purpose of this research is to reveal the mathematics and applications of the computer animation techniques of warping and morphing. A warp is a twist or distortion in the form of an object in an image while a morph is the smooth and gradual transformation of an object in one image into the object in another image. Linear algebra makes these computer animation techniques possible; …

Word-Length Correlations And Memory In Large Texts: A Visibility Network Analysis, Lev Guzmán-Vargas, Bibiana Obregón-Quintana, Daniel Aguilar-Velázquez, Ricardo Hernández-Pérez, Larry S. Liebovitch

Publications and Research

We study the correlation properties of word lengths in large texts from 30 ebooks in the English language from the Gutenberg Project (www.gutenberg.org) using the natural visibility graph method (NVG). NVG converts a time series into a graph and then analyzes its graph properties. First, the original sequence of words is transformed into a sequence of values containing the length of each word, and then, it is integrated. Next, we apply the NVG to the integrated word-length series and construct the network. We show that the degree distribution of that network follows a power law, P(k)∼k−γP(k)∼k-γ, with two regimes, which …

Anthology And Absence: The Post-9/11 Anthologizing Impulse, Anne Lovering Rounds

Publications and Research

The decade after the attacks of 9/11 and the fall of the World Trade Center saw a proliferation of New York-themed literary anthologies from a wide range of publishers. With titles like Poetry After 9/11, Manhattan Sonnet, Poems of New York, Writing New York, and I Speak of the City, these texts variously reflect upon their own post-9/11 plurivocality as preservative, regenerative, and reconstructive. However, the work of such anthologies is more complex than filling with plurivocality the physical and emotional hole of Ground Zero. These regional collections operate on the dilemma of all anthologies: that between collecting and editing. …

Do Predictive Brain Implants Threaten Patient Autonomy Or Authenticity?, Eldar Sarajlic

Publications and Research

In this commentary, I discuss this Frederic Gilbert's claim that predictive brain implants (PBIs) threaten persons’ autonomy by diminishing their postoperative experience of self-control. Contrary to Gilbert, I suggest that PBIs do not pose a significant threat to patient’s autonomy, as self-control, but rather to his or her sense of authenticity. My claim is that the language of authenticity, already introduced in the recent bioethical literature, may offer a better way to voice some of the concerns with PBIs that Gilbert recognized.

The Feast Of Corpus Christi As A Site Of Struggle, Barbara R. Walters

Publications and Research

Multiple versions of the liturgy for the new fest of Corpus Christi provide evidence for changes in the theology of the Eucharist during the thirteenth century. These changes give pause in crediting the Miracle of Bolsena as the source of inspiration for the 1264 version of the liturgy by St. Thomas Aquinas. An earlier version of the "original office" with approbation from Liege Bishop Robert Thourotte in 1246 and a celebration of the feast by Hugh of St. Cher in 1252 weigh against the Bolsena Miracle as the source. Moreover, the idea of a corporeal presence with blood issuing from …

Stargate Theatre Company: Engaging Justice-Involved Youth In Creativity And Growth, Jeffrey A. Butts, Martha Wade Steketee

Publications and Research

This report provides a possible starting point for an evaluation of The Stargate Theater company. The Stargate Theater Company, embedded in the resources, expertise, and artistry of the Manhattan Theatre Club Education Program, recruits its members, 10-15 males, from youth services agencies for a seven-week summer arts program. Members of the program write raw materials which become performable text and perform the work with the help of professional theater artists. The writer-performers work for pay and ultimately perform their own words about their life experiences. The program aims to be a paid job and a work readiness training program, a …

Recovering The Beauty Of Medusa, Alexander M. Schlutz

Publications and Research

This essay presents a close analysis of P.B. Shelley’s fragmentary ekphrastic poem “On the Medusa of Leonardo da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery.” It places Shelley’s text in its aesthetic, mythological and historico-political contexts to demonstrate how Shelley aims to undo the ideological and representational structures of power that inform human language, art, and history, and which turn Medusa into the monstrous Other as which she appears. In Shelley’s text by contrast, Medusa becomes a figure for a revelatory beauty that cannot become visible in the distorting parameters of a discourse of power that informs our very perception of what …

"Happily Ever After": The Tragic Queer And Delany's Comic Book Fairy Tale, Ann Matsuuchi

Publications and Research

Discusses the formulations of queer futurity and normativity in Samuel R. Delany’s autobiographical graphic novel Bread & Wine: An Erotic Tale of New York, drawn by artist Mia Wolff. This love story that is depicted via an interplay of text and imagery resists clichéd homonormative recasting of existing familial templates and questions how expectations queer happiness are bounded by a persistent set of social norms (race, class, education, and income) and their intersections. Also suggests how happy endings can function as a renegotiation of the utopian impulse into something more complex and realistic.

"The First Chinese Swan Lake", Eva S. Chou

Publications and Research

The first Chinese Swan Lake was produced in July 1958 as a full-length work by Beijing Dance School, founded, remarkably, only four years earlier. This moment, enshrined in ballet history, is scrutinized here. This article shows the multiple actors and cultural-political forces that were brought together: the cultural build-up for Swan Lake, Premier Zhou Enlai's personal interest, the distinguished ballet master and choreographer Pyotr Gusev, and the imperatives of the Great Leap Forward.

Are Liberal Perfectionism And Neutrality Mutually Exclusive?, Eldar Sarajlic

Publications and Research

In this paper, I question the view that liberal perfectionism and neutrality are mutually exclusive doctrines. I do so by criticizing two claims made by Jonathan Quong. First, I object to his claim that comprehensive anti-perfectionism is incoherent. Second, I criticize his claim that liberal perfectionism cannot avoid a paternalist stance. I argue that Quong’s substantive assumptions about personal autonomy undermine both of his arguments. I use the discussion of Quong to argue that the standard assumption in liberal theory about mutual exclusivity of liberal perfectionism and neutrality needs to be reconsidered, and I show why the argument about the …

Moria De Erasmo Roterodamo. A Critical Edition Of The Early Modern Spanish Translation Of Erasmus’S Encomium Moriae. Ed. Jorge Ledo And Harm Den Boer. Leiden: Brill, 2014, Adrian Izquierdo

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

El Marqués De Villeroy, Oráculo De La Razón De Estado. Una Traducción Española Con Escolios De Pedro Van Der Hammen, Adrian Izquierdo

Publications and Research

The translations of French historian and politique Pierre Matthieu fostered the circulation of ideas on the best practices of government and stimulated the introduction of political theories such as reason of state, political prudence and sovereignty at a moment when all Europe struggled to reconcile the interests of state and religion. Matthieu´s Remarques d’Estat et d’histoire sur la vie et les services de Monsieur de Villeroi (1618) were translated in 1624 by Pedro van der Hammen, and adapted to the particular Spanish context. In this paper we study how the translation and the illustrations by van der Hammen combine the …

The Mcgowan Trilogy (Plays), Seamus O'Scanlain

Publications and Research

The McGowan Trilogy is a psychological journey of violence, sorrow and love lost. Set in 1980s Ireland after the Brighton Bombing which targeted Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet it follows the exploits of Victor M. McGowan - a new breed of IRA enforcer - in love with puns, guns and the pogo. The Trilogy won awards for Best Actress, Best Director and Best Production in 2014 and played for 20 nights in New York. In 2015 it played in the UK at the Kino-Teatr, An Taibhdhearc, The Town hall Westport and The Town Hall Galway.

Introduction: The 1970s, Shelly J. Eversley, Michelle Habell-Pallán

Publications and Research

Introduction to special issue, "The 1970s," of WSQ (Women's Studies Quarterly), edited by Shelly Eversley and Michelle Habell-Pallán.

Heroic Depiction Vs. Modern Slaughtering -The Great War In The Middle East As A Semi-Modern War, Frank Jacob, Riccardo Altieri

Publications and Research

The paper discusses the reception of the Middle East during the First World War comparing different areas of campaigns and battles in the region.

50 Años De Evolución En Los Estudios Lingüísticos Transculturales: De La Retórica Contrastiva A La Retórica Intercultural, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

When The World Stood Aside – The Allied Reaction To Jan Karski’S Report From Hell, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyses the Allied reactions in the United Kingdom and the United States after having received Jan Karski's report about the situation of the Jews in Poland.

Hollywood’S Image Of The Second World War - David Ayer’S Fury (2014) And The Depiction Of Violence In War, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article describes the way in which violence is depicted in David Ayer’s World War II movie Fury (2014). It also deals with the general question how violence is visualized in current Hollywood movies.

Blood, Tits And The Modern Depiction Of Antiquity – Sparatcus: Blood And Sand And The Display Of A Historical Myth, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article is dealing with the depiction of antiquity in the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand.

The Alteration Of The Image – Women And Japanese Society (1600-2000), Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

A survey paper on the development of the female image in Japan's society from the Tokugawa period until the 2000s.

Gurkha Soldiers As An Intercultural Moment On The European Battlefields Of The Great War, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the role of the Gurkhas during the First World War to explain the intercultural contacts as they were created by the multi-ethnicity of the troops that were recruited for the Great War throughout the British Empire.

Missionaries Or Crusaders? - The Self-Reception Of The Spanish Conquistadors In The 16th And 17th Century, Frank Jacob, Riccardo Altieri

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the self-image of the conquistadors during the European invasion of South and Latin America in the age of expansion.

The Russo-Japanese War And The Decline Of The Russian Image, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the consequences of the Russo-Japanese War with regard to the military reception of Russia in Europe, especially Germany.