Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Heritage Of The Spanish Antilles, Daniel Nieves

Open Educational Resources

This course seeks to explore the heritage of the Spanish Caribbean—primarily Cuba, Dominican Republic/Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico. We will place particular emphasis on the historical, cultural and ethnic forces that have shaped the character of the people of these islands. As well we will explore the variety of societies and cultures of the Spanish Caribbean in their historical and contemporary setting up to and including the (im)migration experience of Spanish Caribbean people to urban North America.

Aging Intimately, Niamh Mcdonnell, Giulia Hjort

Capstones

We’re both familiar with grief after the loss of family members over 75. This project is our way of giving back in a small way by listening, but also as a way of remembering the people we unexpectedly lost. Each person we’ve met on this journey has inspired us in their own way, with their stories of resilience through grief and aging. All of our collaborators on this project are constantly learning, taking risks, and moving forward through loss and pain. They aren’t defined by their age. Rather, they embrace it with a willingness to reinvent their approach to romance …

Minimizing The Dangers Of Air Pollution Using Alternative Facts: A Science Museum Case Study, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

A science museum exhibition about human health contains an exhibit that minimizes health impacts of air pollution. Relevant details, such as the full range of health risks; fossil fuel combustion; air quality statutes (and the local electrical utility’s violations of these statues), are omitted, while end users of electricity are blamed. The exhibit accomplishes this, not through outright falsification, but through selected “alternative facts” that change the focus and imply misleading alternate explanations. Using two classical rhetorical concepts (the practical syllogism and the enthymeme) allows for the surfacing of missing evidence and unstated directives underlying multimodal rhetoric. By stating multimedia …

Boys Will Be, Victoria Hoffman

Capstones

SocialJ Presentation

SocialJ Report

Super, Brown And Queer, Carolyn Adams

Capstones

In response to policy seeking to turn back time for marginalized communities, characters and creators - standing at their intersections - are springing into action to change lives in their worlds and ours. Carolyn Adams explores the circumstances surrounding contemporary mainstream representation of women of color and queer superheroes on the big screen and bookshelves alike.

link to capstone: https://www.carolyn-adams.com/writing-updates/capstone

La Hispanofonía En Debate: Alternativas, Resistencias, Y Complicidades Reunidas En Córdoba (Arg). Una Conversación Glotopolítica Con José Del Valle, Alejandro Néstor Lorenzetti, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

Entre el 27 y el 30 de marzo de 2019 se realizó en Córdoba, Argentina, el VIII Congreso Internacional de la Lengua Española, bajo el lema “América y el futuro del español. Cultura y educación, tecnología y emprendimiento”. El evento, organizado por la Real Academia de la Lengua Española (RAE), el Instituto Cervantes (IC), la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (ASALE) y los gobiernos locales, es conocido y criticado por ser la voz oficial del proyecto político-lingüístico panhispánico. De manera paralela, y con un espíritu desafiante, la Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidadesde la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba (UNC, …

The Concentration Of Household Income In The United States By Race/Ethnicity, 1967 - 2018, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report studies income distribution in the United States between 1967 and 2018 by race and ethnicity.

Methods: The data were derived from the US Census Bureau's Historical Income Tables: Income Inequality

Results: The upper 5% of households controlled 17% of total household income in 1967 and 23% in 2018. The upper 20% of households accounted for 44% of all income in 1967 and 52% in 2018. Economic growth, which has been impressive in the period under consideration, did not result in rising household incomes across the social hierarchy. Between 1967 and 2018 the upper 5% of income-earning households …

Reflection Toolkit: Strategies For Facilitating Reflection In The Classroom, Meghmala Tarafdar, Elizabeth Digiorgio, Alison Cimino, Sebastian Murolo, Miseon Kim, Ilse Schrynemakers

Open Educational Resources

This Reflection Toolkit, compiled by the faculty inquiry group (FIG), includes classroom strategies for integrating reflection into one's existing syllabi. The lesson plans highlight how to encourage effective student reflections.The toolkit includes best practices to facilitate reflection in classes across the disciplines in the context of a variety of student-centered activities (including group-work, online learning, and interactive modules).

How To Create And Maintain An Effective Information Architecture And Navigation System For Science Gateway Websites, Noreen Y. Whysel, Omni Marketing Interactive

Publications and Research

Whether you have an existing Science Gateway website or are creating your first one, this hands-on tutorial will show you, step by step, how to create and update gateway websites so that their content is easier to find and easier to use.

As a Science Gateway provides its web-based tools and resources, it is essential that these sites utilize specific usability tests and other research methods to ensure positive and productive experiences with the sites. Successful information architecture (IA), intuitive site navigation, and clear user interfaces (UIs) all rely on knowing where various users expect to find needed information.

Since …

Puerto Rico: Necrópolis, Yarimar Bonilla

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Reading Mediations: Modeling Online Critical Literacy Strategies, Lisa Hirschfield

Open Educational Resources

Reading Mediations is an interactive, web-based guide for teaching and learning critical online reading skills. Best used with high school or college students, it includes a selection of critical reading tools and verification resources, guided readings, and structured learning activities. It also presents opportunities for independent exploration and critique of the online news and information ecosystem, with live content provided through Twitter and several news websites.

The guiding principle of Reading Mediations is that the epidemic of misinformation, propaganda, and poor journalism online cannot be eradicated by fact-checking tools alone. It must begin with us, the readers. Learning first about …

Προσκυνηματικός Τουρισμός Και Ισραηλινή Προπαγάνδα, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Historical Thinking Beyond The Classroom [History], Robin Kietlinski

Open Educational Resources

This assignment was designed to be used in global history survey courses, which are primarily taken by students with little prior experience in college-level history, and who will not go on to major in History. It has not yet been used, but it is best suited for use in in SSH 106 (World History from 1500) and/or SSH 110 (East Asian Civilizations)—courses currently not designated with any one of LaGuardia’s core competencies and communication abilities. These are both writing intensive courses, wherein LaGuardia’s Written Communication Ability can be reinforced. They employ a number of primary and secondary sources to help …

Reseña De Manual De Escritura Académica_Prat Ferrer Y Peña Delgado, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …

The Mere Mention Of Asians In Affirmative Action, Jennifer Lee, Van C. Tran

Publications and Research

Presumed competent, U.S. Asians evince exceptional educational outcomes but lack the cultural pedigree of elite whites that safeguard them from bias in the labor market. In spite of their nonwhite minority status, Asians also lack the legacy of disadvantage of blacks that make them eligible beneficiaries of affirmative action. Their labor market disadvantage coupled with their exclusion from affirmative action programs place Asians in a unique bind: do they support policies that give preferences to blacks but exclude them? Given their self- and group interests, this bind should make Asians unlikely to do so. We assess whether this is the …

Vinyl As Event: Record Store Day And The Value-Vibrant Matter Nexus, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Why would anyone purchase expensive, natural resource-intensive, and seemingly obsolete material carriers of music when streaming providers provide unlimited access to over 40 million songs for a small monthly fee? As I will show, we can no longer assume that contemporary interest is driven solely by a collector’s market or because of the audible qualities of the vinyl listening experience, and must attend to the many ways people engage with record objects today – and by extension, the vinyl record as an ontological multiple. Through an analysis of Record Store Day 2015 and affiliated phenomena including YouTube unboxing videos, other …

Sounds Of Alter-Destiny And Ikonoklast Panzerist Fabulations, Mette Christiansen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study is a multifaceted attempt to complicate ideas about study, to think about the critical potential and social implications of certain kinds of stories, and how we might effectively disrupt and reinvent notions and techniques of critique and resistance in the names of hope and social transformation. It looks at the creative practices of Jazz musician and other-worldly being Sun Ra, the dual philosophies of “Ikonoklast Panzerism” and “Gothic Futurism” of an artist known as Rammellzee, and the concept-engineering of theorist and artist Kodwo Eshun, in an attempt to think through how radically unconventional forms of study might make …

Exploring Political Action And Socialization Through Group Improvisation Within The Music Of Frederic Rzewski And Cornelius Cardew, Marcel Rominger

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the late 1960s, socialist composers, Cornelius Cardew and Frederic Rzewski, each established ensembles with the purpose of performing works consisting of experimental forms of improvisation. By employing group improvisation, and including untrained, non-musicians within their performances, they strove to use these ensembles as a model for society itself; this model includes a dissolution of the hierarchy among performers and the barrier between performer and audience. Improvisation helped music resist commodification by the culture industry or appropriation by authoritarian regimes for the purpose of propaganda. This dissertation aims to explore how Cardew and Rzewski constituted effective socialization and political action …

Caring Without Sharing: Philanthropy's Creation And Destruction Of The Common World, Amy B. Schiller

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores multiple ways philanthropy builds and undermines the common world. Political science treatments of philanthropy have focused mainly on its role in the development of civil society, with a recent turn towards critiques of philanthropy as an instrument of elite power and tension between private wealth and democratic governance. In this dissertation, I examine how philanthropy can foster enduring spaces of human flourishing, or reduce beneficiaries to objects of pity, surveillance and domination. I trace philanthropy's evolution from ancient to contemporary contexts and propose a framework for philanthropy to, under certain conditions, build and care for the common …

Reimagining The Flute Masterclass: Case Studies Exploring Artistry, Authority, And Embodiment, Sarah Carrier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This work explores the flute masterclass as an aesthetic, ritualized, and historically reimagined cultural practice. Based on fieldwork that took place between 2017 and 2019 in the United States, in Italy, and on the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, I argue that the masterclass—an extension of the master/apprentice system that dominates learning in the classical music tradition—is characterized by embodied qualities of artistry and authority. These qualities are not inherent, but are perceived through subjective, social, familied, and affective bodies.

Chapter One outlines the main themes and the research design. Chapter Two is a case study that analyzes …

Runaway: A History Of Postwar New York In Four Factories, Andy Battle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At midcentury, New York City was among the preeminent manufacturing centers in the United States. Within a generation, this manufacturing economy suffered an extraordinary collapse. Beginning in the 1950s, workers and their unions began to use the term “runaway” to describe factories that pulled up stakes in New York and set them back down in other climes. This dissertation explores the deindustrialization of New York City through case studies of “runaway” plants, or factories that left New York for the American South or abroad between the years 1945 and 1975.

In general, the manufacturers that remained in New York at …

Afro-Cuba Transnational: Recordings And The Mediation Of Afro-Cuban Traditional Music, Johnny Frias

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation analyzes the way audio and video recordings and the internet have impacted, shaped, and helped create a transnational Afro-Cuban music scene. My focus will be on the most popular and widely-recorded genres of Afro-Cuban music—rumba and the religious repertoire of Santería, particularly batá drumming—both of which I also perform regularly with other Cuban musicians in Miami. Incorporating interviews, online ethnographic research, and participant-observation as a musician, my research has three main arguments.

First, recordings of Afro-Cuban music helped create a transnational Afro-Cuban music scene by increasing the popularity of these traditions outside of Cuba, including their amateur performance …

Claiming The Remains Of The Past: The Return Of Cultural Heritage Objects To Colombia, Mexico, And Peru, Pierre Losson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

My research explores the reasons why three Latin American states (Colombia, Mexico, and Peru) claim the return of cultural heritage objects from holding institutions in the Western World, such as museums and universities. The literature on returns and restitutions, which focuses on questions of ownership and possession of objects, opposes two conceptions of cultural heritage: on the one hand, the internationalists argue that the location of a cultural object must be decided according to the interests of science and education, for the benefit and in the name of humankind; on the other hand, the nationalists consider that cultural heritage is …

Infinity Wars: Post 9/11 Superhero Films And American Empire, Peter J. Bruno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last two decades, superhero films have accounted for some of the most popular and financially lucrative films of all time. This thesis analyzes some of the aesthetic and ideological dimensions of various superhero films following their post 9/11 boom. Beginning with America’s response to the events of 9/11 and a subsequent retreat into a Manichean world of good versus evil, I introduce the term “empirical reality” in order to account for the ways daily American life is shielded from the worst effects of U.S. foreign policy. On screen this manifests by perpetuating the myth of the “clean war” …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Cyborgs For Environmental Justice: East Asian American Stories From The 1991 People Of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, Lisa Ng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The goal of this paper is threefold: to serve as an oral history archive of the East Asian American experience at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit, to analyze the role of East Asian Americans in the Environmental Justice Movement (EJM), and to fill an ideological and political vacuum that exists in East Asian American communities. This work analyses the experiences of East Asian Americans who were present at the 1991 People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit--an event scholars have attributed to igniting the EJM. The paper argues that East Asian Americans act as “Cyborgs”—both as their ascribed …

Some Non-Human Languages Of Thought, Nicolas J. Porot

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What might we learn if we take seriously the possibility of non-human Languages of Thought (LoT)? A LoT is a combinatorial set of mental representations. And, since mental representations and rules of combination vary in kind, there are many possible LoTs. Simple LoTs might lack familiar features of the putative human LoT, such as object representations, recursively defined rules of combination, sentential connectives, or predicate-argument structure. The most familiar arguments for the existence of LoTs, such as those from productivity, systematicity, concept learning, and perceptual computation, all fail when applied to non-human animals. But recent empirical evidence motivates attributing LoTs …

Signals In The Black Stack / Geometyr Design Manual, Jason T. Scaglione

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The following white paper provides a critical accompaniment to my capstone project: the GEOMEtyr Design Manual. GEOMEtyr is a virtual reality to be made accessible as a mobile and web platform for the visualization of certain systemic elements of a utopic world that parallels our own planet’s geographies, polities, and climates. As such, the GEOMEtyr virtualization is designed to derive utopian space from the informational structures of our own world. The operations by which this may be accomplished are broadly described within the accompanying GEOMEtyr manual. The white paper, Signals in the Black Stack, elaborates vital world-building characteristics of informational …

Poems To Open Palms: Praise Performance And The State In The Sultanate Of Oman, Bradford J. Garvey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation traces the musical constitution of moral, economic, material, and social relations between rural communities and the state in the Sultanate of Oman. I argue that communities embedded within the authoritarian state hegemony of the Sultanate form and affirm social relations with the state through its embodied proxy, Sultan Qābūs bin Ṣa‘īd Āl Bū Ṣa‘īd, via the reciprocal exchange of state-directed giving and praise poetry responses. The circuit of exchange catalyzes the social production of political legitimacy and ensures continued generous distribution by mythopoetically presenting such cyclicity as resulting from elite and non-elite mutuality. This praise poetry is rendered …