Social Justice Commons^™

Even Judging Woodrow Wilson By The Standards Of His Own Time, He Was Deplorably Racist, Nancy Unger

History

The news that Princeton acquiesced to student demands that the university confront the racism of Woodrow Wilson set off a series of responses. Some protest that it is unfair to judge the 28th president by present day standards. These pundits, almost all white, proclaim that Wilson must be understood within the context of his own time. The inference of such an assertion is that in times of pervasive racism it is reasonable for a leader to perpetuate it. Setting aside the assumption that morals are relative rather than absolute, let’s examine Wilson’s actions within his times.

Wiyot, Wiki And Batawat People, Susie Van Kirk

Susie Van Kirk Papers

In June 1900, Stewart Culin (1858-1929), self-educated anthropologist/ethnographer, traveled to northwestern California on a colleting trip. He was then Director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Museum of Archaeology and Paleontology, and the purpose of his trip to was to secure “a number of Indian curios and relics,” which he did, spending about $150 in Hoopa. He also secured curios from the Mad River Indians near Blue Lake (Blue Lake Advocate 23 June 1900).

Just what Culin collected is unclear, other than the baskets, probably all of which were either Hupa or Yurok, and possibly some Karuk. The tribal heritage of …

Hegel On Sovereignty And Monarchy, Philip J. Kain

Philosophy

Hegel is not a democrat. He is a monarchist. But he wants monarchy because he does not want strong government. He wants to deemphasize power. He develops an idealist conception of sovereignty that allows for a monarch less powerful than a president—one whose task is to expresses the unity of the state and realize the rationality inherent in it. A monarch needs to be a conduit through which reason is expressed and actualized, not a power that might obstruct this process.

Hegel, Recognition, And Same-Sex Marriage, Philip J. Kain

Philosophy

To understand Hegel's concepts of love, marriage, and Sittlichkeit, which are closely related, we must begin to understand his very important theory of recognition. This will be the task of Section II of this article. In pursuing this task, we must be careful to avoid the mistake, made by some commentators, of thinking that mutual recognition between equals is sufficient either for marriage or for Sittlichkeit. For Hegel, I hope to show, the more significant and powerful the recognizer, the more real the recognized—such that, ultimately, recognition must come from spirit (Geist). Then, to better understand Hegel's theory of recognition, …

Gay And Lesbian Culture And Politics, John C. Hawley

English

As laws change and we move several generations away from the times of greatest struggle, the atmosphere that created the contemporary scene for gay and lesbian citizens, their culture and politics, becomes increasingly remote and potentially forgotten. As recent historians have recalled, though, “This was a population too shy and fearful to even raise its hand, a group of people who had to start at zero in order to create their place in the nation’s culture,” –an “invisible people” (Clendinen, 11). The movement for gay and lesbian rights in the United States, considered by many to have originated with the …

Postcolonial Theory, John C. Hawley

English

Rather than agreeing to any one meaning or referent, most critics these days speak of ‘post-colonialisms’ to refer principally to ‘historical, social and economic material conditions’ and at other times to ‘historically-situated imaginative products’ and ‘aesthetic practices: representations, discourses and values’ (McLeod 2000: 254). Arising from subaltern studies, its theorists embrace hybridity, indict alterity, analyze colonial discourse, and employ strategic essentialism to promote identity politics. Under its influence, a strain of self-interrogation has for decades run as an undercurrent through much of anthropology and archaeology. Topics including looting, repatriation, stewardship, and the transformation of disciplinary identity are now persistent tropes …

Creating Knowledge, Volume 8, 2015

Creating Knowledge

Dear reader,

I am delighted to introduce this eighth volume of Creating Knowledge: The LAS Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship. This volume features 19 essays and 14 art works, representing advanced coursework produced in twenty different departments and programs during the 2014-2015 academic year. Several of the essays have been honored with department awards and several draw on research supported by undergraduate research grants. Many were originally written in senior capstone seminars, research-intensive seminars, and independent studies, and many were presented in some form at one of the numerous conferences and showcases sponsored by departments and programs throughout the year. All …

Compassion Development In Higher Education, Roxanne Rashedi, Thomas G. Plante, Erin S. Callister

Psychology

Many schools of psychology and religious studies intend to promote the cultivation of compassion. Compassion is currently an integral area of study in psychology, religious studies, and higher education, specifically in faith-based higher education. While secular universities in the United States strive to generate disciplinary-based knowledge through scholarship, their ability to promote students' use of the information they are learning to create positive social change has typically lagged. Conscious of the magnitude of today's global issues and dissatisfied with the current disparity between the world's reality and university curricula, scholars have begun to re-imagine the role of higher education in …