Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

Mixed Feelings: The Emotional Appeals Of Zitkala-Ša’S American Indian Stories, Kayla Joan Baur

Publications and Research

Zitkala-Ša (Lakota: Zitkála-Šá, meaning Red Bird) was among the first to write about the experiences of Native American children in the U.S. Indian boarding school program to an English-speaking audience. As a writer and political activist, Zitkala-Ša uses emotional appeals and cultural ideas she learned through her white education to expose the very boarding school institutions that taught her. In American Indian Studies (1921), Zitkala-Ša critiques the violence that the Indian boarding school system inflicts on young Native Americans. She presents these critiques through emotional appeals that take two forms: one, a more traditional sentimental appeal associated with middle-class white …

Culturally And Socially Responsive Teacher Professional Learning At The American Museum Of Natural History, Jessica Correa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project consists of a series of professional learning sessions to support teachers in their implementation of Culturally Responsive-Sustaining Education (CR-SE) using the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) as a resource and case study. Through the lens of Historically Responsive Literacy, the series also seeks to reestablish social science as a critical element of natural history for teachers. This series can help teachers see the museum as not only a place to explore life and physical science, but also a place to explore identity, social/emotional development, cultural studies and American History. The project includes resources and directions for …

Antología Vol. Iii Crónica, Cuento, Microrrelato, Poesía Y Relato, Jose Higuera Lopez, Dejanira Alvarez Cardenas

CUNY Mexican Studies Institute

Creada por iniciativa del Instituto de Estudios Mexicanos de CUNY,

la Feria Internacional del Libro de la Ciudad de Nueva York es el espacio

por antonomasia de la promoción del español en la ciudad más

vibrante y cosmopolita de los Estados Unidos. Un español que se

mantiene vivo y cambiante por las muchas migraciones que componen

el entramado de la metrópoli y cuya vitalidad se ve reflejada en

la expresión escrita de la lengua; no solo en el terreno de la literatura

sino también en los de la academia y el periodismo.

La literatura producida en español en la ciudad …

Understanding The Afghan Diaspora: Exploring The Factors Driving Migration And The Impact Of Migration Policies On Recent Afghan Evacuees Resettling In The United States, Aya H. Mohamed

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Afghanistan has been at war with the West since the late 1900’s, remaining in a state of constant turmoil. During the Cold War (1979), Afghanistan had fought a war with the Soviet Union, known as the Soviet- Afghan War. During this time, Afghanistan was invaded by both the Soviet and US, creating a ground for terrorism and the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In order to then eradicate the terrorist regime, the Taliban, the United States went to war with Afghanistan in 2001. The Taliban were suppressed by U.S. forces until August 2021, during which President Biden executed a …

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.

David Versus Goliath: The Power Of Weakness In Asymmetric Warfare—Lessons From History, Nicholas K. Petaludis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Under what conditions do violent nonstate actors (VNA) succeed against states? Why does David sometimes beat Goliath? Since at least the time of Thucydides and the Peloponnesian Wars, the realist narrative in international relations measures power primarily in relative, coercive, and deterrent terms. Strong states should accordingly face fewer constraints and enjoy more options while pursuing their national interests. Unconventional warfare, and its subsets of terrorism and insurgency, should—given these circumstances, end in VNA failure. Sometimes, however, VNAs find success. By comparing the literature on historical and current case studies, I propose that a set of preconditions and two mechanisms …

Nueva York Se Ha Convertido En La Mesa Común Donde Los Pueblos Se Sientan A Compartir, Gustavo Garcia

Capstones

Las personas de las comunidades indígenas y pueblos originarios de México han encontrado formas de revivir sus prácticas y costumbres en su hogar adoptivo en la ciudad de Nueva York. Esto, a pesar de haber dejado sus comunidades de origen y con ellas sus tradiciones que se han inculcado de generación a generación milenariamente. Algunas de ellas pensaron que lo estaban dejando todo atrás cuando migraron de sus hogares. Sin embargo, poco a poco, al transcurso de los años las personas comenzaron a encontrarse, a crear espacios y una red donde las tradiciones no solo son compartidas, sino que se …

“The People Are Tired, And Just Want To Have Fun”: Mahraganat Music And The Struggle For Sonic Presence In Post-2013 Egypt, Mohammed Elfeky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon Asef Bayat’s notion of the “unintelligibility” of Egypt’s subaltern politics, this thesis investigates how mahraganat music is rendered “unintelligible/nonsense” by influential Egyptian cultural figures and is targeted for censorship. Mahraganat is a musical artform that arose from the lower-working classes neighborhoods in Egypt to become a dominant genre in the country. In 2020, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate, headed by Hany Shakir, banned mahraganat artists from performing officially in Egypt. Before and after the ban, state media debated the genre's status; its detractors framed the music as nonsensical, “absurd”, “meaningless”, “vulgar”, and a “low-brow” dilution of Egyptian cultural production …

[Cldv 100] Diversity And Multicultural Studies, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

CLDV100 (Liberal Arts) Introduction to Multicultural Studies in the 21st Century: 3 hrs. 3 crs.

A study of what culture is; how it influences the choices we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working/living situations with people of diverse cultures. It is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes an ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A. Through the study of cultural concepts, this course develops skills in critical thinking, writing, and scholarly documentation. Not open to students with credit in CLDV …

Diversity And Multi-Cultural Education In The 21st Century: An Oer / Coil / Ztc Course Text, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

CLDV100 (Liberal Arts) Introduction to Multicultural Studies in the 21st Century: 3 hrs. 3 crs.

A study of what culture is; how it influences the choices we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working/living situations with people of diverse cultures. It is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes an ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A. Through the study of cultural concepts, this course develops skills in critical thinking, writing, and scholarly documentation. Not open to students with credit in CLDV …

Diversity And Multiculturalism In The 21st Century, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Publications and Research

This is a presentation on Diversity and Multi-Culturalism in the 21st Century related to the individual and society based on responses from in-class assignments during various semester course sessions [from 2019 to 2021] taught by the presenter at the York College [CUNY]. In the course in addition to culture, students learned about norms, values, systems of beliefs, social interaction, verbal and non-verbal communication, race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation and gender, technology and culture, cultural universalism and relativism, and how these affect our shared or distinct day to day cultural practices and social interaction in our various communities.

At the …

Cldv 100 Introduction To Multicultural Studies: Active Learning Assignment, Oluremi "Remi" Alapo

Open Educational Resources

A study of what "culture" is; how we see it based on several factors, how it influences the choices and decision we make; how to deal positively with conflicts that inevitably arise in working /living situations with people of diverse cultures. This is a course structured to raise multicultural awareness and fortify students' social skills in dealing with cultural differences. It includes ethnographic study of cultural groups in the U.S.A and responses to shared values, observations or experiences based on student's ancestry, heritage, travels. Students will learn about culture "do and donts" around the world and provide the class with …

A Description Of The Phonology And Morphology Of Kɔɖa, An Endangered Language Of Bangladesh, Ahmed Shamim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation provides a preliminary description of the phonology and morphology of Kɔɖa [cdz], an endangered language of Bangladesh and one of the least described Munda languages of South Asia. It has four chapters: 1) Introduction, 2) Phonology, 3) Morphology, and 4) Kɔɖa in the Context of Language Contact. Chapter 1 provides a demographic overview of Kɔɖa speakers of Bangladesh, a discussion of Kɔɖa as a Munda language, a typological sketch of the language, a summary of previous work on Kɔɖa, and a summary of the fieldwork and methodology used in collecting data. Chapter 1 also previews the descriptive frameworks …

Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Benefit To Climate-Displaced And Host Communities, Gül Aktürk, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Climate change is borderless, and its impacts are not shared equally by all communities. It causes an imbalance between people by creating a more desirable living environment for some societies while erasing settlements and shelters of some others. Due to floods, sea level rise, destructive storms, drought, and slow-onset factors such as salinization of water and soil, people lose their lands, homes, and natural resources. Catastrophic events force people to move voluntarily or involuntarily. The relocation of communities is a debatable climate adaptation measure which requires utmost care with human rights, ethics, and psychological well-being of individuals upon the issues …

Water Gets Lost In The Sea, Sun Gets Lost In The Desert, Rocio Paz Guerrero

Theses and Dissertations

The absence of happiness, the absence of nature, the absence of justice, the absence of absence, which is presence. My desire is to make these voids visible and sensible by connecting to and with others, from our intimate and collective life experiences, with empathy, and by sharing. Through a hybrid of sculpture, installation, and performance, I move within this tense in-between space, asking myself about that void, if it is possible for it to be filled, or if it is perhaps too big, or if it is perhaps too late.

Afn 121 Yoruba Tradition And Culture, Remi Alapo

Open Educational Resources

A class presentation as part of the discussion on West Africa about the instructor’s Yoruba Heritage, Research, Tradition and Culture in the AFN 121 course: History of African Civilizations on April 20, 2021.

Auto®Ficción Latinx De Nueva York (1999–2020), Jacqueline Herranz Brooks

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research on the intersection of Literary Criticism, Latino Studies, Persona Studies, and Performance Studies has led me to question the accepted definitions of autoficción (Doubrovsky, Gasparini, Alberca, Casas, Schlikers) and expand that definition into a more multifaceted and operational term. Hence, I created auto®ficción, a new term describing the hybrid creations of a group of underrepresented contemporary Latinx authors living/producing/circulating their work in New York City, during the first two decades of the 21^st Century. For these authors, their life experiences and quotidian uses of this city’s spaces are the subjects of their work. Auto®ficción draws attention …

360º Video And Language Documentation: Towards A Corpus Of Kanien'kéha (Mohawk), Joseph Pentangelo

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Robust documentation is a major goal of documentary linguistics. Recognizing spoken language as a multimodal phenomenon, researchers working in this field broadly agree that video is an improvement over audio-only recording. At the same time, video is limited by the format’s frame, which permits only a relatively small portion of the visual field to be recorded at any given time. This results in much data being lost, as the documenter must decide where to aim their camera, necessarily leaving out more than they record.

In this dissertation, I apply 360º video to language documentation for the first time. 360º video, …

Positioning And Repositioning: Transnational Identity (Re) Construction And (Re) Negotiation By American-Senegalese Children, Aminata Diop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The main aim of this dissertation is to study the ways American-Senegalese children position and reposition themselves as they (re) construct and (re) negotiate their transnational identity upon returning to the U.S. from Senegal. This project explores the following questions: 1) why do US-residing Senegalese parents send their children back to their homeland to be raised by relatives? 2) how do these American-Senegalese children (re) construct and (re) negotiate their multiple layers of identities upon returning home after being raised by extended family members for more than a decade?3) and how do the American-Senegalese children (re) story their racial, class, …

From The Unspoken To The Verbalized: Different Ways Of Communication And Their Relationship To Culture In A Traditional Lakota Narrative "Ikto Na Wičhá Ha Kiŋ”, Or “Ikto And The Racoon Skin”, Liliana R. Boladz-Nekipelov

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This master’s thesis is a discourse analysis of a traditional Lakota story, " Iktó na wičhá ha kiŋ”, or “Ikto and the Racoon Skin”, one of the 64 stories included in the “Dakota Texts”, which were collected by Ella Deloria at three Lakota reservations in 1930s as a part of Franz Boas’ language documentation project. The thesis is also an attempt to examine different communicative strategies employed within the narrative and their relationship to culture, as well as the relationship between form and the transfer of meaning and culture and meaning. The analysis is conducted using Dell Hymes’ ethnographic approach …

Hebrew As A Gendered Language And An Oppressive Mechanism Against Women In The Israeli Society, Rotem Itzhaky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Wherever you look, whether reading a textbook, scrolling through wanted ads, looking at job requirements, or just watching the news on the television – the effects of the gendered nature of Hebrew are noticeable everywhere. For many years I have been fascinated by the fact that Hebrew is a gendered language in a way that promotes patriarchy by using the unmarked masculine form of words as a default. Some claim that the language as we know it today is neutral, and not discriminatory, while others, including women which interviews you can find in this paper, do not experience it as …

Did The Muslim Ban Cause Islamophobia? Institutional Versus Individual Prejudice, Emma Handte

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Muslim ban is part of a storied American history of Islamophobia, and as such acts as more of a reflection of members of the population’s individually held beliefs about Muslims rather than a catalyst for such beliefs. Surveys of Americans on their opinions of Muslims seem to support this view: a “thermometer” reading of respondents’ views towards Muslims shows that from 2014 to 2017 to 2019, “cold” or negative opinions of Muslims actually decreased. This corresponds to a theory of individually directed Islamophobia that is not significantly impacted by institutional policy changes, such as the Muslim ban. But at …

Bella Figura: Understanding Italian Communication In Local And Transatlantic Contexts, Denise Scannell Guida

Publications and Research

Bella figura—beautiful figure—is an idiomatic expression used to reflect every part of Italian life. The phrase appears in travel books and in transnational business guides to describe Italian customs, in sociological research to describe the national characteristics of Italians, and in popular culture to depict thematic constructs and stereotypes, such as the Mafia, romance, and la dolce vita. Scholarly research on bella figura indicates its significance in Italian civilization, yet it remains one of the most elusive concepts to translate. Among the various interpretations and references from foreigners and Italians there is not a single definition that captures the …

Short Stories Of Latin America From Antilles To Southern Cone, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Open Educational Resources

The study of the short story genre in Latin American literature. Literary currents in 20th century, from the Vanguards to The Boom, fiction of post dictatorships, exile, and entry into the 21st century.

Contradictions Of Freedom In The Tempest And The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao, Menaka Serres

Theses and Dissertations

In William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610-1611) and Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) the character negotiate contradictions of freedom: the entitlements that justify violence as well as oppression on the one hand and rights that grant access to emancipation from violence and imposition on the other.

Semiotic And Discursive Displays Of Tamazight Identity On Facebook: A Sociolinguistic Analysis Of Revitalization Efforts In Post-Revolutionary Tunisia, Soubeika Bahri

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the online discourses and semiotic resources employed by the Tunisian Amazigh community in their language and identity revitalization efforts on Facebook in wake of the 2011 Tunisian Revolution. Drawing on insights from discourse-centered online ethnography (Androutsopoulos, 2008), the frameworks of language iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure (Irvine and Gal, 2000), and the tactics of intersubjectvity proposed by Bucholtz and Hall (2004), I argue that Tunisian Imazighen (sing. Amazigh) use Facebook to challenge hegemonic language ideologies that erase Tamazight. I propose the notion of counter-erasure as an ideological process used by Amazigh activists to contest Arabo-Islamic ideology, …

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

You Are Here: Mapping The World System Of Mohsin Hamid’S Fiction, Terrie Akers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mohsin Hamid’s novels—Exit West, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Moth Smoke—offer fecund ground for thinking through globalization and the changing world system. Bruce Robbins articulates a working definition of the “worldly” or global novel as one that “encourage[s] us to look at superstructures, or infrastructures, or the structuring force of the world capitalist system." Following on Robbins’s argument, Leerom Medovoi has written that Hamid’s work belongs to a body of literature that “is not so much of or by, but for Americans”—which he terms “world-system literature,” a literary application …

How Immigrants Are Redefining Hudson Valley Dining, Kevin Wheeler

Capstones

Westchester county and the greater Hudson Valley have never been known for their restaurants. While ubiquitous Italian-American red sauce spots and diners serve their purpose, they do not usually demand any detours. Sure, there might be an iconic hot dog stand like Walter’s in Mamaroneck, and the preeminent cooking school of the United States is a few miles north of Poughkeepsie. But mostly, these areas are collectively known as the beautiful backyard of New York City, not as a culinary destination.

That notion is slowly changing, however, as the Hudson Valley becomes more diverse, and thereby more exciting, culinarily speaking. …

Creating Herstory: Female Rebellion In Arundhati Roy’S "The God Of Small Things" And "The Ministry Of Utmost Happiness", Priyanka Tewari

Theses and Dissertations

In The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness novels, the author Arundhati Roy is not only attempting to give feminist weight to the multiplicity of locations in which gender is articulated by recasting her female characters in their quest for selfhood, she is also focusing on women and women-identified characters as agents of history, thereby contributing to an ongoing project of feminist historiography.