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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Cognitive Relatives Yet Moral Strangers?, Judith Benz-Scharzberg, Andrew Knight Jul 2019

Cognitive Relatives Yet Moral Strangers?, Judith Benz-Scharzberg, Andrew Knight

Andrew Knight, PhD

This article provides an empirically based, interdisciplinary approach to the following two questions: Do animals possess behavioral and cognitive characteristics such as culture, language, and a theory of mind? And if so, what are the implications, when long-standing criteria used to justify differences in moral consideration between humans and animals are no longer considered indisputable? One basic implication is that the psychological needs of captive animals should be adequately catered for. However, for species such as great apes and dolphins with whom we share major characteristics of personhood, welfare considerations alone may not suffice, and consideration of basic rights may …


Sexual Misconduct, Religion, And Culture, Alev Dudek Jan 2019

Sexual Misconduct, Religion, And Culture, Alev Dudek

Alev Dudek

Civilization is the reflection of a constant effort to increase reproduction while suppressing pleasure. This is because civilized societies are artificial systems that are governed by rulers. They are militarized and operate through production, consumption, exchange of goods and services, and the transfer of wealth. Unlike reproduction, pleasure and release of tension do little to benefit the rulers (unless they are involved in the process themselves, of course). The higher the number of births, the better for the rulers because of the increased opportunities for economic and military exchange. Naturally, there are exceptions to this rule. However, such exceptions, …


The Douban Online Social Media Barometer And The Chinese Reception Of Korean Popular Culture Flows, Brian Yecies, Jie Yang, Ae-Gyung Shim, Kai Ruo Soh, Matthew J. Berryman Jul 2018

The Douban Online Social Media Barometer And The Chinese Reception Of Korean Popular Culture Flows, Brian Yecies, Jie Yang, Ae-Gyung Shim, Kai Ruo Soh, Matthew J. Berryman

Dr Brian Yecies

Since its launch in 2005, the Chinese online social networking site Douban has become a key platform for creating and sharing user-generated content on a rising tide of global popular culture. Such content and its corresponding user data has become so prolific that Western media outlets are now using Douban a key barometer for gauging representative opinions and attitudes towards foreign content in China. However, a full range of tools for harvesting and analyzing Chinese-language datasets has yet to be explored in English. This article attempts to fill this gap by investigating the applicability of an analytical framework that can …


A Reflection Of Lingering In Nature.Pdf, Xinyue Deng May 2018

A Reflection Of Lingering In Nature.Pdf, Xinyue Deng

Xinyue Deng

When looking through the camera lens, what do I see and hear? This thesis includes my
two years of practice as a video artist discovering the world. It reveals my position as a
middle person between my homeland, China and the country I am living and learning in,
America. This double-sided culture blend affects my point of view of looking at things and
myself especially in nature. The fundamental longing of discovering nature is deeply rooted
in my own culture, and it has been developed over time by living in another culture. The
process of looking closely at nature is …


Xinyuedeng-Thesis.Pdf, Xinyue Deng May 2018

Xinyuedeng-Thesis.Pdf, Xinyue Deng

Xinyue Deng

When looking through the camera lens, what do I see and hear? This thesis includes my
two years of practice as a video artist discovering the world. It reveals my position as a
middle person between my homeland, China and the country I am living and learning in,
America. This double-sided culture blend affects my point of view of looking at things and
myself especially in nature. The fundamental longing of discovering nature is deeply rooted
in my own culture, and it has been developed over time by living in another culture. The
process of looking closely at nature is …


The Dark Side Of Creative Tourism: A Philosophical Dialogue With Culture, Babu P. George Dec 2017

The Dark Side Of Creative Tourism: A Philosophical Dialogue With Culture, Babu P. George

Babu George

This manuscript interrogates the epistemological limitations of creative tourism, which is framed technically within “cultural tourism”. Discussing the old prejudices and paternalist discourses of colonialism, where “science” developed an uncanny sentiment of protection and submission for aboriginals, “cultural tourism” emulates old forms of domination, in a context of extremes and economic crisis. If creativity only works in contexts of scarcity, it would be interesting to understand capitalism as a cultural project that shows some problems to understand the “ non-European other” and environmental resources. 


Polymediated Narrative: The Case Of The Supernatural Episode "Fan Fiction", Art Herbig, Andrew F. Herrmann Aug 2017

Polymediated Narrative: The Case Of The Supernatural Episode "Fan Fiction", Art Herbig, Andrew F. Herrmann

Andrew F. Herrmann

Modern stories are the product of a recursive process influenced by elements of genre, outside content, medium, and more. These stories exist in a multitude of forms and are transmitted across multiple media. This article examines how those stories function as pieces of a broader narrative, as well as how that narrative acts as a world for the creation of stories. Through an examination of the polymediated nature of modern narratives, we explore the complicated nature of modern storytelling.


Interview With A First Generation Male Indian Immigrant, Lisa Roy-Davis Mar 2017

Interview With A First Generation Male Indian Immigrant, Lisa Roy-Davis

Lisa Roy-Davis

Male immigrant from India discusses his immigration to America for an advanced degree in engineering. He talks about his community involvement both in America and India. Also he relates how he feels the two countries are different in regard to culture, politics, and education.


Cultural Perceptions Of Human Intelligence, Ebinepre A. Cocodia Apr 2016

Cultural Perceptions Of Human Intelligence, Ebinepre A. Cocodia

Ebinepre Cocodia

This paper analyzes notions of culture and human intelligence. Drawing on implicit and explicit theory frameworks, I explore discourses about perceptions of intelligence and culture. These include cultural perceptions and meanings of intelligence in Asia, Africa and Western cultures. While there is little consensus on what intelligence really means from one culture to the next, the literature suggests that the culture or sub culture of an individual will determine how intelligence is conceived. In conclusion, the view is that culture and intelligence are interwoven.


Good Teaching, Spirituality And The Philosophy Of Emmanuel Levinas, Glenn J. Morrison Apr 2016

Good Teaching, Spirituality And The Philosophy Of Emmanuel Levinas, Glenn J. Morrison

Glenn J Morrison

The essay aims to show that nurturing a spirituality of good teaching could provide a more committed and responsible attitude towards education. Spirituality speaks of relationships, the search for meaning and, in Levinasian terms, having a heart for another. Students demand that teachers should be many things such as passionate, engaging, intelligent, fun, challenging, fair and creative. The more we can develop meaning and a spirituality in teaching, the more we may meet these demands and also attend to the students’ enthusiasm, frustration, uncertainty, impatience, fears and dreams. Part I of the essay will explore some Levinasian-inspired ways how spirituality …


Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement And Space [Review], Timothy O'Sullivan Feb 2016

Rome, Ostia, Pompeii: Movement And Space [Review], Timothy O'Sullivan

Timothy O'Sullivan

Archaeologists and historians have set out to reconstruct Rome, in one way or another, from the very beginning of the profession. More recently, scholars have begun to design 3-D simulations of ancient sites and monuments; even Google Earth offers the option of ‘visiting’ ancient Rome as it appeared in A.D. 320. According to the editors of this stimulating volume, however, these reconstructions, with their vast empty spaces and pristine monuments, ignore an important part of ancient Rome: the people, animals, and vehicles that moved through the cityscape. And as anyone who has ever traveled knows, different cities move in different …


Ins And Outs Of Queens. Richmond Hill, Shabana Sharif, Simran Singh Feb 2016

Ins And Outs Of Queens. Richmond Hill, Shabana Sharif, Simran Singh

Simran Jeet Singh

The streets of Richmond Hill, Queens are known for their vibrant and flavorful customs. Richmond Hill is home to many different communities including the largest Indo-Caribbean community in the United States, and a growing Punjabi community. Come and join to learn more about Richmond Hill.


‘Strategies Of Recognition’ And Palestinian Immigrant Women’S Dress: Forging Communities And Negotiating Power Relations, Enaya Othman Oct 2015

‘Strategies Of Recognition’ And Palestinian Immigrant Women’S Dress: Forging Communities And Negotiating Power Relations, Enaya Othman

Enaya Othman

This paper examines the narratives of twenty-two Palestinian immigrant women who settled in the Milwaukee area in order to demonstrate the particular ways in which they used their dress as a means to claim places of importance and exert influence in their communities. While women’s clothing conventions are the product of social and cultural powers that operate to ‘discipline the body,’ nevertheless, women subject to these forces deliberately choose to maneuver within their society’s standard code of dress for mobility. Because of this, the standards for dress do not simply discipline; they are a means by which women can reassign …


Language, Meaning, And Culture: Research In The Humanities, Lawrence Kimmel Oct 2015

Language, Meaning, And Culture: Research In The Humanities, Lawrence Kimmel

Lawrence Kimmel

Human beings are story-telling animals. We play out our lives in complex and interactive narratives that constitute our individual and collective lives; taken altogether, such narratives constitute the self-understanding of a people and time. It should be acknowledged that this remains relative and a relational matter; that there exists no master-narrative in the sense that there is a final way that the world is. There is no one way that things or people must be; this is so of the physical world of objects no less than the life-world of human beings. Even so, as Physics aspires to a full …


Law's Religion: Rendering Culture, Benjamin L. Berger Sep 2015

Law's Religion: Rendering Culture, Benjamin L. Berger

Benjamin L. Berger

This article argues that constitutional law's inability to deal with religion in a satisfying way flows, in part, from its failure to understand religion as, in a robust sense, culture. Once one begins to understand the Canadian constitutional rule of law itself as a cultural form, it becomes apparent that law renders religion in a very particular fashion, and that this rendering is a product of law's symbolic categories and interpretive horizons. This article draws out the elements of Canadian constitutionalism's unique rendering of religion and argues that, although Canadian constitutionalism claims to understand religion as a culture, this is …


Nation, Culture, Language, Metaphor: Living With And Understanding Each Other. Disclosure Interviews David Ingram, Kelli Mcallister, Christine Metzo, Jeffery Nicholas Jul 2015

Nation, Culture, Language, Metaphor: Living With And Understanding Each Other. Disclosure Interviews David Ingram, Kelli Mcallister, Christine Metzo, Jeffery Nicholas

Jeffery Nicholas

No abstract provided.


Disadvantages Of Being An Individualist In An Individualistic Culture: Idiocentrism, Emotional Competence, Stress, And Mental Health, Gregory Scott, Joseph Ciarrochi, Frank Deane Jul 2015

Disadvantages Of Being An Individualist In An Individualistic Culture: Idiocentrism, Emotional Competence, Stress, And Mental Health, Gregory Scott, Joseph Ciarrochi, Frank Deane

joseph Ciarrochi

Based on past cross-cultural research, it was hypothesised that people who had strong individualistic values and beliefs within an individualistic culture would have smaller social support networks, lower emotional competence, lower intentions to seek help from a variety of sources, and poorer mental health. A total of 276 first-year students attending an Australian university completed an anonymous survey assessing individual differences in individualism (i.e., idiocentrism), social support, emotional competence, hopelessness, depression, and suicide ideation. As expected, idiocentrism was associated with smaller and less satisfying social support networks, less skill in managing both self and others' emotions, lower intentions to seek …


Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson Jun 2015

Creating The Back Ward: The Triumph Of Custodialism And The Uses Of Therapeutic Failure In Nineteenth Century Idiot Asylums, Philip M. Ferguson

Philip M. Ferguson

"My focus in this chapter is on the origin of the back ward rather than its demise. Where did the “back wards” that [Burton] Blatt and [Senator Robert] Kennedy witnessed come from in the first place? What 3 exactly were those “antecedents of the problems observed” that Blatt cited? This chapter reviews that history and argues that, in fact, there is a specific narrative to the evolution of the institutional “back ward” as an identifiable place where people with the most significant intellectual disabilities were to be incarcerated and largely forgotten."


Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews Apr 2015

Politics Or Metaphysics? On Attributing Psychological Properties To Animals, Kristin Andrews

Kristin Andrews, PhD

Following recent arguments that there is no logical problem with attributing mental or agential states to animals, I address the epistemological problem of how to go about making accurate attributions. I suggest that there is a two-part general method for determining whether a psychological property can be accurately attributed to a member of another species: folk expert opinion and functionality. This method is based on well-known assessments used to attribute mental states to humans who are unable to self-ascribe due to an early stage of development or impairment, and can be used to describe social and emotional development as well …


Beyond Exile: The Ramayana As A Living Narrative Among Indo-Fijians In Fiji And New Zealand, Kevin Miller Dec 2014

Beyond Exile: The Ramayana As A Living Narrative Among Indo-Fijians In Fiji And New Zealand, Kevin Miller

Kevin C. Miller

Drawing on the themes of collective memory, cultural ideologies, and narrative constructions, this chapter proposes to examine the narrative of the Ramayana epic, its exegesis through performance, and its continued relevance to identity formation among Indo-Fijian Hindus both within Fiji and its Pacific Rim diaspora. Based on the recasting of the “twice-migrated” Indo-Fijian as the “twice-banished” by certain observers, we might expect the meaning of the Ramayana in the lives of Indo-Fijian Hindus in New Zealand to shift towards the theme of Rama’s exile, just as it did for the indentured laborers who made the original journey to Fiji. Nevertheless, …


Overview: A Sketch Of Themes In Analysis Of Creaturely Motives, Kirby Farrell Dec 2014

Overview: A Sketch Of Themes In Analysis Of Creaturely Motives, Kirby Farrell

kirby farrell

This is a response to a Research Gate session on “Horror Sanguinis,” an essay posted by D.L. Smith and Ioanna Panaitiu, on rites of purification through which cultures prepare warriors and others tainted by violence to reenter society. My comment sketches some basic themes in my work on creaturely motives in cultural analysis (Post-Traumatic Culture and The Psychology of Abandon).


Aesthetics In Culture, Dan Rager Nov 2014

Aesthetics In Culture, Dan Rager

Dan Rager

This article examines the role of aesthetics in art, music, non-art objects, and activities in daily life. It shows that recognition is vital to our understanding of art and art-objects and sometimes creates conflicts which ask, what does one do with art? The question becomes more confusing when we think about non-art objects and activities which concern our everyday experiences from eating, clothing, cleaning and dealing with life's natural elements. The author points out that Western cultures have a distinct artworld that is usually limited for special occasions set aside for that purpose. He suggests that aesthetics in culture is …


Connecting Through Consilience: Ecology, Society, Culture And Technology, Ruth Mirams, Alexander Hayes Jul 2014

Connecting Through Consilience: Ecology, Society, Culture And Technology, Ruth Mirams, Alexander Hayes

Alexander Hayes Mr.

Amongst linguistic, cultural and geographic diversity, humanity is characterised by inquisitiveness, communication and a deep desire to connect with each other. Despite our advanced intelligence and technological capacity, we are creatures of nature - a species which occupies a habitat, depends on consumable resources and fragile in many ways. As a species, we currently face challenges including overpopulation, diminishing resources and habitat degradation. In essence, we are exhausting the resources we depend on. [1] Resource depletion, disruption, famine, growth and sustainability are all observable in other species and natural systems. Human societies and systems can be described through the same …


The Time & The Place: Sundance London 2014 Review Article, Vaughan S. Roberts Apr 2014

The Time & The Place: Sundance London 2014 Review Article, Vaughan S. Roberts

Vaughan S Roberts

This report on the Sundance Film Festival in London in April 2014 includes seven film reviews and observations on the religious themes in them, as well as how the films connect to the notion of place.


The Swahili, Jesse Benjamin Apr 2014

The Swahili, Jesse Benjamin

Jesse Benjamin

No abstract provided.


Befriending Death: Over 100 Essayists On Living And Dying, Michael C. Vocino, Alfred G. Killilea Dec 2013

Befriending Death: Over 100 Essayists On Living And Dying, Michael C. Vocino, Alfred G. Killilea

michael c vocino

This book provides brief essays from people of a vast array of backgrounds, all taking death seriously and openly reflecting on how and where they find meaning in life. Many of these voices are from the smallest state, Rhode Island, which we feel serves as a microcosm of the diversity and insight of the larger country. This chance for a rare sharing of views on a truly profound subject has attracted commentators who are deeply religious and those who are not religious, noted authors and people who have never published a word, people celebrated by the world and people ignored …


“Reclaiming The Possibility Of An Interior Human Culture? Michel Henry And La Barbarie”, Vol. 44, N. 3, October 2013, 251–264., Antonio Calcagno Sep 2013

“Reclaiming The Possibility Of An Interior Human Culture? Michel Henry And La Barbarie”, Vol. 44, N. 3, October 2013, 251–264., Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

No abstract provided.


Desire And Lack Of Being (Ideas Of The West: Book 1), Raoul Mortley Apr 2013

Desire And Lack Of Being (Ideas Of The West: Book 1), Raoul Mortley

Raoul Mortley

Extract: Western literature and philosophy characterize the human being as being gripped by a violent and mysterious desire, or thirst for something else, something other than oneself. We will first consider the way in which this theme manifests itself in antiquity.


November Uri Community Diversity Project 2010, Joseph A. Santiago Mr, Riley Davis Ms, Richard V. Travisano Mr Apr 2013

November Uri Community Diversity Project 2010, Joseph A. Santiago Mr, Riley Davis Ms, Richard V. Travisano Mr

Richard Travisano

November is National Novel Writing Month. For the first time at the University of Rhode Island November was a month for the URI community to share their stories, poems, art, and photos with the world. The Writing to Model Diversity project intends to connect individuals across cultural boundaries and borders by sharing the stories and experiences that challenge our everyday experiences and the dreams of the future. Built on the efforts of the World Voice series, URI presents a book that shares the stories and culture of the students, faculty, staff, and community members who embrace the idea of becoming …


Global Culture Concerns, Korcel M. Price Apr 2013

Global Culture Concerns, Korcel M. Price

Korcel M Price

The following proposal seeks to change hiring, promoting, and firing practices among global and trans-national companies. The changes are intended to fortify the organization through better management, a better employee contract, and by moving closer to a learning organization.

At the heart of the proposal is the desire to move hiring, promoting, and firing practices to an external or internal third party, as means of creating a global culture that consistently applies the values of supra system’s organization.