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La Vivienda Colectiva De Los Yanomami, Graziano Gasparini, Luise Margolies

Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America

This article on the shapono, the traditional dwelling of the Yanomami, is taken from our book, Arquitectura Indígena de Venezuela. The Yanomami are one of the three indigenous groups of the tropical forest region of lowland Venezuela who build large collective dwellings that house the entire community. In contrast to the neighboring Ye’kwana and Wôthuha, who inhabit closed structures located near large waterways, the Yanomami are forest people whose traditional shapono is a structure opening onto a large central patio. Here, we examine the cultural division of space into private, semiprivate, and public areas in the context of Yanomami …

Development And Validation Of A Facebook Relational Maintenance Measure, B. Mcewan, J. Fletcher, J. Eden, Erin M. Bryant

Human Communication and Theatre Faculty Research

This manuscript details the construction of a measure of Facebook relational maintenance behaviors. The first study generated an item pool by drawing from previous qualitative investigations and adapting an established relational maintenance scale. Participants were then invited to evaluate these items in order to establish face validity. During study two, participants were asked how often they used the behaviors represented in these items to maintain a specific friendship. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the underlying structure of these items; three latent factors emerged, social contact, response-seeking, and relational assurances. This factor structure was then assessed using confirmatory factor …

Epistemic Relativism, Steven Luper

Philosophy Faculty Research

Epistemic relativism rejects the idea that claims can be assessed from a universally applicable, objective standpoint. It is greatly disdained because it suggests that the real 'basis' for our views is something fleeting, such as "the techniques of mass persuasion" (Thomas Kuhn 1970) or the determination of intellectuals to achieve "solidarity" (Rorty 1984) or "keep the conversation going" (Rorty 1979). But epistemic relativism, like skepticism, is far easier to despise than to convincingly refute, for two main reasons. First, its definition is unclear, so we cannot always tell where relativism leaves off and other views, such as skepticism or subjectivism, …

Orszula's Death: Grief And Consolation In The Renaissance--The Treny Of Jan Kochanowski, Michael Tworek

History Honors Theses

n this thesis, I use the Treny, a late 16th century collection of nineteen poems by the Polish humanist Jan Kochanowski, as a basis from which to reconstruct a historical narrative of his attempt at self-consolation over the death of his daughter and, in the process, reconsider our current understanding of the Renaissance in Europe. Until fairly recently, scholars have tended to view the Renaissance as a primarily Italian or western European phenomenon. Eastern Europe receives little mention in current academic discussions of the Renaissance. This thesis, however, will show that the Treny does offer compelling evidence that this view …

The Director’S Cut: Baroque Aesthetics And Modern Stagings Of The Comedia, Matthew D. Stroud

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

The last twenty-five years have witnessed a relative explosion in the number of staged productions of Spanish comedias. Whether the performances take place in Madrid, Almagro, New York, or El Paso, the experience has changed forever the way those who have attended performances view plays previously known only by reaing [sic] the text. One cannot fail to have been affected by the interaction between literature and theater, between professors and directors, between text and performance. A debate that has arisen as a result of this spectator's experience, especially after the production of a particularly well-known comedia, …

Implementation And Indeterminacy, Curtis Brown

Philosophy Faculty Research

David Chalmers has defended an account of what it is for a physical system to implement a computation. The account appeals to the idea of a “combinatorial-state automaton” or CSA. It is unclear whether Chalmers intends the CSA to be a computational model in the usual sense, or merely a convenient formalism into which instances of other models can be translated. I argue that the CSA is not a computational model in the usual sense because CSAs do not perspicuously represent algorithms, are too powerful both in that they can perform any computation in a single step and in that …

Posthumous Harm, Steven Luper

Philosophy Faculty Research

According to Epicurus (1966a,b), neither death, nor anything that occurs later, can harm those who die, because people who die are not made to suffer as a result of either. In response, many philosophers (e.g., Nagel 1970, Feinberg 1984, and Pitcher 1984) have argued that Epicurus is wrong on both counts. They have defended the mortem thesis: death may harm those who die. They have also defended the post-mortem thesis: posthumous events may harm people who die. Their arguments for this joint view are by now quite familiar, and there is no need to rehearse them here (for …

Literature, Mystery, And Truth, Lawrence Kimmel

Philosophy Faculty Research

In this essay I will make use of a procedure, and concept of truth that emerged from the work of Brentano and Husserl, that runs against the currents and idols of our age. Its most recent articulation is found in the work of Heidegger. The idea of truth as aletheia is an attempt to see the truth of Being as it discloses itself to understanding. In this way, truth is an activity of disclosure that has two moments; coming to light and bringing to light. Its notion is that of allowing things, as it were, to come to presence, to …

"Everything Flows": The Poetics Of Transformation, Lawrence Kimmel

Philosophy Faculty Research

Plato famously dismissed art as thrice removed from reality, holding that mimesis is a copy of a copy, a distraction from the more serious affairs of truth. Two millennia have done little to remove this stigma of dissembling deceit leveled at art. Metamorphosis provides an alternative view of reality, and of the access of art to that reality, that I will consider in the remarks that follow. On the opposite view of things from Plato, Heralclitus, addressing the question of reality — of what and how things are — declared “IIαvτα Pηεl ”, Everything Flows: the idea that reality …

Death As Metaphor, Lawrence Kimmel

Philosophy Faculty Research

What remains to be said about the question and problem of death that has not been repeated a thousand times in the history of human thought and culture? Philosophers in the Western tradition have seemingly argued every nuance of the name, nature, causes, and consequences of death since Plato first took up the death of Socrates as the funding occasion of his philosophical life and thinking. Epicurean and Stoic philosophers subsequently framed the basic arguments that are still with us, directed to three basic questions concerning death: What is it? Is it good or bad? Should we fear it?

Corneille's Absent Characters, Nina Ekstein

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

The relationship between presence and absence in theater is intertwined and complex. For Kibédi Varga, a work of art invariably signifies absence in that it proposes an image, a representation, rather than the thing itself (341-42). This is obviously true of theater. At the same time, theater is essentially about presence. The empty stage is a space that derives its potential for force and meaning from the expectation of live bodies engaged in concrete actions there. Perhaps more to the point, theater is about the dialectical relationship between absence and presence. According to Fuchs, "theatre is ever the presence of …

Alicia Sotero Vásquez: Police Brutality Against An Undocumented Mexican Woman, Rita Urquijo-Ruiz

Modern Languages and Literatures Faculty Research

This article focuses on police brutality and human rights violations in the United States. The author examines the infamous Riverside Sheriff's brutal beating of an undocumented Mexican woman—which was captured and broadcast live via television—as exemplary of a particular historical relationship between Mexican labor, the U.S. nation-state, and the material conditions of immigrant laborers. Tracing this relationship through a historical survey of Mexican immigration from the turn of the twentieth century and placing the analysis in the context of Critical Race Theory, the article foregrounds the intersection of race, class, and gender. While the author focuses on the Riverside Sheriff's …

Near Eastern Sources For The Palace Of Alkinoos, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

The last quarter century of archaeological discoveries have significantly enriched and nuanced our understanding of interactions between the Greek world and the Levant during the Greek Archaic period (conventionally defined as 776-479 B.C.E.). They have also allowed us to construct an increasingly detailed model explaining the diffusion of knowledge from Mesopotamia to Greece at this time. In addition, advances in our understanding of oral cultures, and the role of oral narrative traditions within them have cast valuable new light on the ways in which the Homeric epics appropriate, adapt, and preserve cultural knowledge. The palace of Alkinoos, described in Book …

Eastwards Via Cyprus? The Marked Mycenaean Pottery Of Enkomi, Ugarit And Tell Abu Hawam, Nicolle E. Hirschfeld

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Based on her study of distribution patterns, Vronwy Hankey suggested that Cyprus or Cypriots played some role in the trade of Mycenaean pottery eastwards to the Levant. She also noted that some of the Mycenaean pottery which reached both Cyprus and the Near East carried marks incised on handles or painted on bases. This paper examines the possible relationships between the marks, Mycenaean pottery, Cyprus, and the trade in Late Bronze Age ceramics. Special reference is made to the evidence from the sites of Enkomi, Ugarit, and Tell Abu Hawam.

À partir de son étude sur les schémas de répartition, …

Singing Heroes: The Poetics Of Hero Cult In The Heroikos, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

In this essay, I explore the poetic, emotional, and ritual dimensions of hero cult as presented in Philostratus's Heroikos. After a short digression on hero cult in the Greek period, I focus on the emphasis placed on the emotional bond between worshiper and hero, as well as the important role played by hymns and laments in the narrative. l propose to investigate these twin themes in depth by focusing on examples provided by Philostratus himself, and particularly the cult of Melikertês. Because Philostratus associates hymns and laments with initiation or mystery cults, I also consider the link between hero …