Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Typography Behind The Arabetic Calligraphy Veil, Saad D. Abulhab

Publications and Research

In the change from scriptural writing systems to textual mechanical systems and most recently to digital, computer generated text, some languages and their typographic representations have suffered. One such language, along with its visible language representation, that has not made a smooth transition is Arabic. The author argues that misinterpreting language tradition prevents what he calls Arabetic typography from embracing an appropriate technological adaptation. Putting forth an evolutionary argument, he critiques the notion that calligraphic styles must prevail and that legibility and readability of Arabic characters is objective. He further states that the resulting typefaces when abandoning the so called …

Mccarthyism And Libraries: Intellectual Freedom Under Fire, 1947-1954, Stephen Francoeur

Publications and Research

This essay will analyze how library organizations, such as the American Library Association, and individual librarians responded to the pressure placed on libraries during the McCarthy era to deal with alleged subversion. Although libraries have always been the target of censors, it was during the first decade of the Cold War that those Americans most fearful of Communist subversion swept up large numbers of their fellow citizens in a crusade to rid libraries of Communist influence. That effort by the self-proclaimed “loyal Americans” to save libraries put more than just library collections under the microscope. The librarians themselves were scrutinized …

Review Of Macbeth, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Geoffrey Wright's Macbeth: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/12/macbeth-2006.html

Review Of Petulia, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Richard Lester's Petulia: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/06/petulia.html

Rousseau's Gift To Geneva, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

People often seem to forget that Rousseau dedicated his Second Discourse to “The Republic of Geneva.” This is a shame because, in doing so, they miss precious clues not only about the meaning of the Discourse itself, but also about its place in Rousseau’s political thought as a whole.

It is no accident that Rousseau dedicated the Discourse on Inequality, his most radical work of all, to his hometown of Geneva; but it requires some research into the historical context to understand why. In Geneva a patrician ruling elite was using social contract theory to subvert the democratic principles …

Henry James’S "The Ambassadors": Anatomy Of Silence, Marie Leone Meyer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the use of silence in Henry James's novel The Ambassadors. James uses silence rich in meaning to portray the protagonist Lewis Lambert Strether's unfolding consciousness. James creates different types of silences that reflect a shift from the spoken or written word to alternate symbol systems. James's novel perches on the threshold of modernity, as his work reflects the ideas of a line of thinkers extending back from James and his brother, William, to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sampson Reed, and Emanuel Swedenborg. At the same time, the novel draws on the contemporary ideas of Charles Darwin, prefigures …

Learning Communities And The Future Of The Humanities, Phyllis E. Vanslyck

Publications and Research

According to Profession's 2005 Presidential Forum, one reason for dwindling enrollment in the Humanities is lack of interdisciplinarity. Learning communities, courses clustered around a common theme and taught to the same group of students are a powerful example of a kind of interdisciplinarity that is flourishing on more than five-hundred campuses in the United States.This essay looks closely at the expanding learning community movement and its relevance to revitalizing the Humanities.

Spanish In Brazil: Language Policy, Business, And Cultural Propaganda, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

The purpose of this article is to describe and analyze the language policies designed and implemented since the early nineties by Spanish government agencies in order to promote Spanish as a valuable international language. In particular, we focus on its promotion in Brazil and on the strategies used to legitimize not only the presence of the language in various domains (e.g. the educational system) but also the active participation of Spanish institutions in its spread. Through a detailed analysis of a corpus of relevant texts, (a) we critically examine the cultural, economic, and political roots of these policies, as well …

Participation, Claire Bishop

Publications and Research

An anthology of key writings on the topic of participation in art, from the 1950s to the 2000s.

Review Of The Conformist, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2007/01/the-conformist.html

Review Of Elevator To The Gallows, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Louis Malle's Elevator to the Gallows: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/06/elevator-to-the-gallows.html

Review Of Hail! Hail! Rock 'N' Roll, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Taylor Hackford's Chuck Berry documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'n'Roll: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/08/chuck-berry-hail-hail-rock-n-roll.html

Review Of I Wake Up Screaming, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of H. Bruce Humberstone's I Wake Up Screaming: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/07/i-wake-up-screaming.html

Review Of The River's Edge, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Allan Dwan's The River's Edge: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/07/the-rivers-edge-1957.html

Normalizing The Abnormal: Disability In Music And Music Theory, Joseph N. Straus

Publications and Research

The emerging interdisciplinary field of disability studies takes as its subject matter the historical, social, and cultural construction of disability. After a brief introduction to disability studies, this article explores the interconnected histories of disability and music as they are manifested in three theoretical approaches to late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Western art music (the musical Formenlehre and the tonal theories of Schoenberg and Schenker) and in three works by Beethoven and Schubert. Around the turn of the nineteenth century in Western Europe, disability began to be understood not as something natural and permanent but rather as a deviation from …

Steven Palmer From Popular Medicine To Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, And Public Power In Costa Rica, 1800-1940. (Book Review), Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Steven Palmer From Popular Medicine To Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, And Public Power In Costa Rica, 1800-1940. (Book Review), Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Unemployment And Labor Force Participation Rates Among Racial/Ethnic Groups And Latino Nationalities In The New York Metro Area And The Five Boroughs, Laura Limonic

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

This report details the unemployment rates among Latino origin groups and racial/ethnic groups in the New York Metro area. The data are broken down by boroughs and by the eight largest Latino origin groups in New York: Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Mexicans, Cubans, Colombians, Guatemalans, Peruvians and Ecuadorians.

Methods:

The data for this report were derived from the 2005 American Community Survey published by the U.S. Census Bureau. Data examined in this report are unemployment rates and rates of labor force non-participation rates. The U.S. Census classifies those not in the labor force as anyone who is not working nor …

Orientalisms In The Interpretation Of Islamic Philosophy, Muhammad Ali Khalidi

Publications and Research

The recent death of Edward Said has reignited the debate as to whether his landmark work Orientalism still has something to teach us about the study of Arab-Islamic civilization. In this article, I will argue that Saidʼs central thesis in Orientalism has a direct explanatory role to play in our understanding of the work produced in at least one area of scholarship about the Arab and Islamic worlds, namely Arab-Islamic philosophy from the classical or medieval period. Moreover, I will claim that it continues to play this role not only for scholarship produced in the West by Western scholars but …

Review Of Yellow Sky, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of William Wellman's 1948 Western, inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Review Of Pretty Poison, Michael Adams

Publications and Research

Review of Noel Black's Pretty Poison: http://www.media-party.com/discland/2006/11/pretty-poison.html

Urban Fervor: Los Angeles Literature And Alternative Religion, Christine M. Daley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Using alternative religion and other dynamics within the spiritual life of Los Angeles opens up the city's literary canon; employing religion as a critical lens illuminates the conjunction of history, literature, and urban growth that characterizes Los Angeles culture. This is especially relevant in a setting where, according to a 1941 guide to the city, "the multiplicity and diversity of faiths that flourish in the aptly named City of Angels probably cannot be duplicated in any other city on earth." It is apparent, however, that the specific social phenomena of abundant sects in this urban space can provide keys to …

Liberace, Janet Butler Munch

Publications and Research

Liberace was a pianist and popular entertainer who projected old-world elegance and set the tone for showmanship in the postwar era.

Buscando Ambiente: Hegemony And Subaltern Tactics Of Survival In Puerto Rico’S Land Distribution Program, Ismael Garcia-Colon

Publications and Research

A land distribution program in the community of Parcelas Gándaras in Cidra, Puerto Rico, transformed the lives of formerly landless workers. Examination of the working conditions and social relations of workers before the program (1890s–1945) and their economic strategies, migration, and networks after becoming small landholders (1945–1960s) shows how they used their land to accommodate their practices of everyday life and their tactics of survival. Local ruling groups became hegemonic through the establishment of land distribution communities. The habitus of the new landholders expressed the ways in which they engaged in economic, social, and political activities shaped by the new …

On Sovereignty And Overhumanity Why It Matters How We Read Nietzsche's Genealogy 11:2, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

There is nearly unanimous agreement, among those who bother to pay attention to Nietzsche's anomalous claim about the "sovereign individual" in the second essay of On the Genealogy of Morals that the "sovereign" is Nietzsche's ideal, and many more still take sovereignty as the signature feature of the overman Nietzsche heralds in his Thus Spoke Zarathustra and other writings. I describe the reception among Nietzsche scholars as "nearly unanimous" because there has been at least one cry of dissent: that issued by Lawrence Harab. Curiously, his brief but incisive comments about the problematic nature of several readings along these lines …

Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity In Going To Meet The Man, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

"Papas' Baby: Impossible Paternity in Going to Meet the Man" employs the conceit of “impossible” fatherhood to critique mutually reinforcing racist and heteronormative constructions of reproduction. It argues, first, that the white paternal fantasy of creating “pure” white sons is undermined by the homoerotic necessity of bring the phantasmatic black eunuch, castrated yet powerfully potent, into the procreative white bed. The “fact” of the “white” child produced in that marital bed, however, not only cloaks the failure of racial reproduction in the living proof of success but also occludes the male/male union that subtends the heteronormative fantasy of reproduction. …

"Feathered Glory": A Poet In Flight From Medieval Ireland To The Twentieth Century, Denell Marie Downum

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Feathered Glory explores the relevance of the medieval Irish character Suibhne, usually anglicized as Sweeney, to twentieth-century writers. Suibhne is the protagonist of the twelfth-century text Buile Suibhne, in which he is depicted as a minor king who goes mad on the field of battle, abandons his kingdom and his role in society, and flies like a bird into the woods, where he becomes a poet of exceptional power and beauty. This tale languished in obscurity for many centuries, but following J. G. O'Keeffe's publication of a scholarly edition and English translation of Buile Suibhne in 1913, Suibhne has …

Larry Rivers And Frank O'Hara: Reframing Male Sexualities, Dong-Yeon Koh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In 1970, Sam Hunter complained that the distinctive persona of proto-Pop artist Larry Rivers had overshadowed his artistic achievement. "Too often he has been taken as an engaging public performer", wrote Hunter, claiming that some critics "make the mistake of confusing his irrepressible exhibitionism with an imagined artistic flaw of fitful or unsteady inspiration". 1 This dissertation presents an alternative proposition regarding the relationship between Rivers' artistic persona and art: that an examination of Rivers' numerous activities inside and outside the artistic arena, such as poetry, jazz, and media, is indeed useful for understanding his work. Particularly, Rivers' involvement with …

Flamenco In Focus: An Analysis Of A Performance Of Soleares, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Visible Effects: Narrative Spectacle And Affective Response In The Late Eighteenth-Century Novel, Tanya Radford

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Eighteenth-century visual culture and literature reflect a struggle between two models of vision and understanding: on one side, an Enlightenment vision dedicated to disembodied objectivity and technical precision; on the other, a sentimental or expressive vision that produces irrational or emotional insight. If the disembodied eye can be seen as an emblem of reason and the goal of the Enlightenment approach to scientific knowledge, the spectatorial and incarnate eye represents an alternative and equally significant emblem of the period's visuality. This dissertation focuses on novels from the late Eighteenth century in which the spectatorial and incarnate eye is the dominant …