Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review-Fishing For Chickens: A Smokies Food Memoir, Blake Denton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Instrumental Music Education In Rural North Carolina: A Descriptive Study, Melody Causby, Catheryn Shaw Foster

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to investigate secondary instrumental music education in rural North Carolina. This descriptive study investigated the experiences, attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions that rural instrumental music educators (n = 55) held about their schools, students, and communities. Furthermore, the researchers examined how participants defined success for their programs, what challenges and rewards they experienced in their positions, and what skills they considered most important for themselves as teachers.

Results indicate that although rural music educators find the musical aspects of their positions rewarding, they believe that their nonmusical skills related to teaching, such as developing …

Honor, Excrement, Ethnography: Colonial Knowledge Between Missionary And Militaire In French Algeria, Joseph W. Peterson

Faculty Publications

In 1865, an overly aggressive missionary in the Kabyle mountains of French Algeria was tricked into sitting in human excrement, publicly humiliated by the tribe he hoped to convert. Or was he? Historians of French Algeria have recounted this story as confirmation of the scholarly consensus: that public missions to Muslims were either nonexistent or delusional and short-lived in the early decades of French Algeria. But these historians have relied on a version of the incident that was authored by an unsympathetic military administrator. This article argues that the excremental incident in Kabylie—and the competing versions of what happened there—should …

American Buddhist Protection Of Stones In Terms Of Climate Change On Mars And Earth, Daniel Capper

Faculty Publications

A number of scientific writers have proposed manipulating the ecology of Mars in order to make the planet more comfortable for future immigrants from Earth. However, the ethical acceptability of such ‘terraforming’ proposals remains unresolved. In response, in this article I explore some of these scientific proposals through the lens provided by Buddhist environmental ethics that are quantitatively expressed by practitioners in the ethnographic field of the United States. What I find is that contemporary Buddhists combine philosophical notions of interconnectedness with moral considerations not to harm others and then creatively extend this combined sensibility to the protection specifically of …

Ethical Consistency And Experience: An Attempt To Influence Researcher Attitudes Toward Questionable Research Practices Through Reading Prompts, Samuel V. Bruton, Mitch Brown, Donald F. Sacco

Faculty Publications

Over the past couple of decades, the apparent widespread occurrence of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs) in scientific research has been widely discussed in the research ethics literature as a source of concern. Various ways of reducing their use have been proposed and implemented, ranging from improved training and incentives for adopting best practices to systematic reforms. This article reports on the results of two studies that investigated the efficacy of simple, psychological interventions aimed at changing researcher attitudes toward QRPs. While the interventions did not significantly modify researchers’ reactions to QRPs, they showed differential efficacy depending on scientists’ experience, suggesting …

Strangers In The Village: James Baldwin, Teju Cole, And Glenn Ligon, Monika Gehlawat

Faculty Publications

This essay uses Edward Said’s theory of affiliation to consider the relationship between James Baldwin and contemporary artists Teju Cole and Glenn Ligon, both of whom explicitly engage with their predecessor’s writing in their own work. Specifically, Baldwin’s essay “Stranger in the Village” (1953) serves a through-line for this discussion, as it is invoked in Cole’s essay “Black Body” and Ligon’s visual series, also titled Stranger in the Village. In juxtaposing these three artists, I argue that they express the dialectical energy of affiliation by articulating ongoing concerns of race relations in America while distinguishing themselves from Baldwin in terms …

Preserving Mars Today Using Baseline Ecologies, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Current calls to protect the Martian environment with “Planetary Parks” maintain environmental merit. However, they lack a sufficiently urgent timeframe for initiating protection as well as a robust scientific method for the establishment of noteworthy Martian natural landmarks as natural reserves. In response, if we return to the seminal environmental preservation teachings of Aldo Leopold and John Muir, we encounter the importance of grounding Martian preservation efforts on the fundamental environmental science method of a base-datum of normality, or baseline ecology. This method establishes natural reserves that feature both minimal human interference as well as known origination dates, thereby providing …

The Search For Microbial Martian Life And American Buddhist Ethics, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Multiple searches hunt for extraterrestrial life, yet the ethics of such searches in terms of fossil and possible extant life on Mars have not been sufficiently delineated. In response, in this essay I propose a tripartite ethic for searches for microbial Martian life that consists of default nonharm toward potential living beings, default nonharm to the habitats of potential living beings, but also responsible, restrained scientific harvesting of some microbes in limited transgression of these default nonharm modes. Although this multifaceted ethic remains secular and hence adaptable to space research settings, it arises from both a qualitative analysis of authoritative …

Haiti And The Uses Of America: Post-U.S. Occupation Promises, By Chantalle F. Verna, Matthew Casey

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review: Milton And The Politics Of Speech, Helen Lynch, Jameela A. Lares

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet On Fire: Buddhism, Protest, And The Rhetoric Of Self-Immolation, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Review of John Whalen-Bridge, Tibet on Fire: Buddhism, Protest, and the Rhetoric of Self-Immolation, in Journal of Contemporary Religion

The Invention Of English Criticism, Nicolle M. Jordan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Norms Of Valence And Arousal For 14,031 Spanish Words, Hans Stadthagen-Gonzalez, Constance Imbault, Miguel A. Pérez Sánchez, Marc Brysbaert

Faculty Publications

Most current models of research on emotion recognize valence (how pleasant a stimulus is) and arousal (the level of activation or intensity that a stimulus elicits) as important components in the classification of affective experiences (Barrett, 1998; Kuppens, Tuerlinckx, Russell, & Barrett, 2012). Here we present a set of norms for valence and arousal for a very large set of Spanish words, including items from a variety of frequencies, semantic categories, and parts of speech, including a subset of conjugated verbs. In this regard, we found that there were significant but very small differences between the ratings for conjugations of …

Entering The Stream To Enlightenment, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Animism Among Western Buddhists, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Myriad instances of animist phenomena abound in the Buddhist world, but due to the outdated concepts of thinkers such as Edward Tylor, James George Frazer, and Melford Spiro, commonly scholars perceive this animism merely as the work of local religions, not as deriving from Buddhism itself. However, when one follows a number of contemporary scholars and employs a new, relational concept of animism that is based on respectful recognition of nonhuman personhoods, a different picture emerges. The works of Western Buddhists such as Stephanie Kaza, Philip Kapleau Roshi, and Gary Snyder express powerful senses of relational animism that arise specifically …

#Iftheygunnedmedown: Postmodern Media Criticism In A Post-Racial World, Christopher P. Campbell

Faculty Publications

After the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old African American man, by a White police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, some news organizations included in their immediate coverage a photo of Brown taken from his Facebook page. In a now iconic image, Brown stands in a Nike tank top, unsmiling, and flashing a peace sign (misidentified by some news organizations as a gang sign). Later, less incendiary photos from Brown’s Facebook page surfaced. Within a few days of Brown’s death, the hashtag #IfTheyGunnedMeDown appeared on social media. Young African Americans posted two photos of themselves, representing positive and …

The Maternal Personhood Of Cattle And Plants At A Hindu Center In The United States, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Religious experiences with sacred nonhuman natural beings considered to be “persons” remain only vaguely understood. This essay provides a measure of clarification by engendering a dialogue between psychoanalytic self psychology on one side and, on the other, religious experiences of cattle and Tulsi plants as holy mothers at a Hindu cattle sanctuary in the United States. Ethnographic data from the Hindu center uncover experiences of sacred maternal natural beings that are tensive, liminal, and colored with affective themes of nurturance, respect, and intimacy, much like psychoanalytic maternal selfobjects. Devotees protect cattle and ritually venerate plants because these actions facilitate a …

Groundhog Oracles And Their Forebears, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

Groundhog Day animal weather forecasting ceremonies continue to proliferate around the United States despite a lack of public confidence in the oracles. This essay probes religio-historical and original ethnographic perspectives to offer a psychological argument for why these ceremonies exist. Employing Paul Shepard’s notion of a felt loss of sacred, intimate relationships with nonhuman nature, as well as Peter Homans’ concept of the monument that enables mourning, this essay argues that groundhog oracles serve as monuments that allow humans experientially to attempt to heal lost sacred relationships with animals like weather forecasting bears, hedgehogs, and badgers

Learning Love From A Tiger: Approaches To Nature In An American Buddhist Monastery, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

In current debates about Buddhist approaches to the non-human natural world, studies describe Buddhism variously as anthropocentric, biocentric or ecocentric. These perspectives derive for the most part from examinations of philosophical and normative aspects of the tradition without much attention to moments when embodied practice diverges from religious ideals. Responding to the need for narrative thick descriptions of lived Buddhist attitudes toward nature, I ethnographically explore a Vietnamese monastery in the United States. There I find multifaceted Buddhist approaches to nature which sometimes disclose disunity between theory and practice. Philosophically and normatively, this monastery embraces ecocentrism through notions of interconnectedness, …

Review Of Stephen Bending, Green Retreats: Women, Gardens And Eighteenth-Century Culture, Nicolle Jordan

Faculty Publications

Review of Stephen Bending. Green Retreats: Women, Gardens and Eighteenth-Century Culture. New York: Cambridge UP, 2013. X +312 pp. Index. ISBN: 978-1-107-04002-1.

Milton And The Art Of Rhetoric, Jameela Lares

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Trees, My Lungs: Self Psychology And The Natural World At An American Buddhist Center, Daniel S. Capper

Faculty Publications

This study employs ethnographic field data to trace a dialogue between the self psychological concept of the selfobject and experiences regarding the concept of “interbeing” at a Vietnamese Buddhist monastery in the United States. The dialogue develops an understanding of human experiences with the nonhuman natural world which are tensive, liminal, and nondual. From the dialogue I find that the selfobject concept, when applied to this form of Buddhism, must be inclusive enough to embrace relationships with animals, stones, and other natural forms. The dialogue further delineates a self psychological methodology for examining religions in their interactions with natural forms.

Between Worlds: The Rhetorical Universe Of Paradise Lost, Jameela Lares

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Musical Ear: Oral Tradition In The Usa, Chris Goertzen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

When I Get My New House Done, Western North Carolina Fiddle Tunes And Songs Sfc Cd-100 (M Martin), Chris Goertzen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

An Exploratory Study Of Adult Amateur Musicians' Identification Of Instrumental Timbre, Amanda L. Schlegel, Jeremy S. Lane

Faculty Publications

In this exploratory study, members of an adult community band (N = 38) completed a listening task in which they attempted to identify instruments performing single-tone excerpts and determine the level of expertise of the performer (professional or beginner). We created two different conditions (tones that included initial attack and tones with sustain only and no initial attack) among tones produced by four different instruments (flute, clarinet, alto saxophone, trumpet) on two different pitches (F4 and B-flat4). Results of data analysis indicated that participants were more successful identifying tones that included the initial attack (as opposed to tones consisting of …

Standard Issue: Public Discourse, Ayers V. Fordice, And The Dilemma Of The Basic Writer, Joyce Olewski Inman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Driving The Bow: Fiddle And Dance Studies From Around The North Atlantic, 2nd Edition, Chris J. Goertzen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Nation Before Taste: The Challenges Of American Culinary History, Andrew P. Haley

Faculty Publications

Food is material and familiar, and because it is, we are often overconfident about our ability to understand the culinary past. It is easy to believe that if we can discover the recipe for some forgotten dish, the history of the dish becomes intelligible. When it does not, it tempts those who consume culinary history to impose modern sensibilities on our predecessors. The Nation before Taste" argues that historians and museum curators must be especially vigilant when presenting the history of food. Reviewing a series of historical challenges that stemmed from studying the United States in the late nineteenth and …

A Review Of "The Reformation Of The Landscape: Religion, Identity, & Memory In Early Modern Britain And Ireland" By Alexandra Walsham, Nicolle M. Jordan

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.