Digital Commons Network^™

Place Matters: Contextualizing The Roles Of Religion And Race For Understanding Americans’ Attitudes About Homosexuality, Amy Adamczyk, Katherine A. Boyd, Brittany E. Hayes

Publications and Research

As laws and policies related to homosexuality have evolved, Americans' attitudes have also changed. Race and religion have been established as important indicators of feelings about homosexuality. However, researchers have given almost no attention to how county characteristics shape Americans' attitudes. Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques, we examine how personal characteristics and the religious and racial context of a county shape feelings about homosexuality drawing on data from the American National Election Survey and information about where respondents reside. We find that African Americans initially appear less tolerant than other racial groups, until we account for the geographical distribution of …

Exchanges Of Identity In Prehistoric Anatolian Figurines, Ellen H. Belcher, Karina Croucher

Publications and Research

This paper examines exchange imagery and ideology of the human body manifested through figurines from prehistoric (7 th –6 th millennia BC) Anatolian contexts. These figurines document local, regional and inter-regional communication of identity, use of materials, ideologies and skills. Taking a new approach to understanding the assemblages, this paper suggests four key themes of analysis: materials and materiality; fractured bodies; gender spectrum; and ambiguities and relationships.

The Trouble With White Feminism: Whiteness, Digital Feminism And The Intersectional Internet, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

In August, 2013 Mikki Kendall, writer and pop culture analyst, started the hashtag #SolidarityisforWhiteWomen as a form of cyberfeminist activism directed at the predominantly white feminist activists and bloggers at sites like Feministing, Jezebel and Pandagon who failed to acknowledge the racist, sexist behavior of one their frequent contributors. Kendall’s hashtag activism quickly began trending and reignited a discussion about the trouble with white feminism. A number of journalists have excoriated Kendall specifically, and women of color more generally, for contributing to a “toxic” form of feminism. Yet what remains unquestioned in these journalistic accounts and in the scholarship to …

Ideologías Lingüísticas, José Del Valle, Vítor Meirinho

Publications and Research

This article provides an introduction to the concept of linguistic ideologies and its applicability to sociolinguistic analysis.

When Judges Don't Follow The Law: Research And Recommendations, Michele Cotton

City University of New York Law Review

No abstract provided.

Strangers In Their Own Lands: A Story Of Japanese Brazilians, Ken Aragaki

Capstones

Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside of Japan. Since the first dispatch of Japanese immigrants in 1908, more than 240,000 people moved from Japan to Brazil between the early 1900s and the 1970s. Many of them settled outside the city of São Paulo and started working as coffee farmers under unfamiliar and harsh conditions. Today, according to some estimates, more than 1.6 million people of Japanese descent live in Brazil.

As Japan became the world’s economic power, it sought foreign workers to fill its booming labor market. The government turned to Japanese Brazilians and started granting them …

Los Problemas De Las Fronteras Humanitarias, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

Resumen:

Este texto plantea un análisis crítico del papel de los discursos y prácticas humanitaristas en nuestra concepción de la migración y en las políticas públicas desarrolladas en relación a la movilidad poblacional a través de las fronteras internacionales. Se parte de la premisa de que el humanitarismo, aunque fuera bien intencionado, puede tener efectos perniciosos sobre la situación que se vive en las fronteras, especialmente si acaba por sustituir a la justicia y a los derechos que tienen los emigrantes. Para estudiar esta paradoja, el texto analiza, sucesivamente, varios problemas asociados a la acción humanitaria: el problema con la …

Deposition, Conjecture, And The Word Of Nod, Victor Vaughn

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis involved mixed medium drawings based on written colonial papers regarding the beginning of a border war between the colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania. To fill in the fragmented historical information, the project incorporated period artifacts as merged and manipulated by contemporary technology and the internet’s ethos.

Counter Culture: A Brief Oral/Visual History Of Independent Record Shops, Lee Ann Fullington

Publications and Research

Independent record shops have long been focal points of local music communities. As online music becomes the new normal, the role of these shops is changing. Though many shops have disappeared, others continue to flourish as they have evolved to meet the tastes and demands of collectors, crate diggers, producers, and fans who prefer LPs to MP3s.

Drawing on original ethnographic research conducted in the early 2000s in the US and the UK, this presentation discusses the role and significance of independent record shops in various music scenes. Based on interviews with owners, staff, and customers, this talk is a …

Studies In The History Of Anthropology In The United States, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

I will talk about a study I did on the first persons to do Ph.D.s in anthropology and how the project led to my leaving the anthropology profession and becoming a librarian. The project began in a biographical study of a little-known anthropologist that involved archival work. As a librarian who has left the profession of anthropology (not without trauma), I remain keenly interested in the history and bibliography of anthropology and view dissertation projects as crucial to understanding the biographies of scholars and trends in academic professions.

Prescription Drug Diversion: Predictors Of Illicit Acquisition And Redistribution In Three U.S. Metropolitan Areas, Shana Harris, Valentina Nikulina, Camila Gelpi-Acosta, Cory Morton, Valerie Newsome, Alana Gunn, Heidi Hoefinger, Ross Aikins, Vivian Smith, Victoria Barry, Martin J. Downing Jr.

Publications and Research

Objective: Prescription drug diversion, the transfer of prescription drugs from lawful to unlawful channels for distribution or use, is a problem in the United States. Despite the pervasiveness of diversion, there are gaps in the literature regarding characteristics of individuals who participate in the illicit trade of prescription drugs. This study examines a range of predictors (e.g., demographics, prescription insurance coverage, perceived risk associated with prescription drug diversion) of membership in three distinct diverter groups: individuals who illicitly acquire prescription drugs, those who redistribute them, and those who engage in both behaviors.

Methods: Data were drawn from a cross-sectional Internet …

The Ticker, November 9, 2015

The Ticker

The Ticker is the student newspaper of Baruch College. It has been published continuously since 1932, when the Baruch College campus was the School of Business and Civic Administration of the City College of New York.

“I Am More Productive In The Library Because It’S Quiet”: Commuter Students In The College Library, Mariana Regalado, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

This article discusses commuter students’ experiences with the academic library, drawn from a qualitative study at the City University of New York. Undergraduates at six community and baccalaureate colleges were interviewed to explore how they fit schoolwork into their days, and the challenges and opportunities they encountered. Students identified physical and environmental features that informed their ability to successfully engage in academic work in the library. They valued the library as a distraction-free place for academic work, in contrast to the constraints they experienced in other places—including in their homes and on the commute.

Educational Attainment In The United States And Six Major Metropolitan Areas, 1990-2010: A Quantitative Study By Race, Ethnicity, And Sex, Lawrence Cappello

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines educational attainment rates among racial/ethnic groups in the US and New York City metro area between 1990 and 2010.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: The data indicate that the percentage of the population with a B.A. or higher in the U.S. has steadily increased across all races and ethnicities for both sexes. This trend was apparent in …

The Foot Of Homo Naledi, W. E. H. Harcourt-Smith, Z. Throckmorton, K. A. Congdon, B. Zipfel, A. S. Deane, M. S. M. Drapeau, S. E. Churchill, L. R. Berger, J. M. Desilva

Publications and Research

Modern humans are characterized by a highly specialized foot that reflects our obligate bipedalism. Our understanding of hominin foot evolution is, although, hindered by a paucity of well-associated remains. Here we describe the foot of Homo naledi from Dinaledi Chamber, South Africa, using 107 pedal elements, including one nearly-complete adult foot. The H. naledi foot is predominantly modern human-like in morphology and inferred function, with an adducted hallux, an elongated tarsus, and derived ankle and calcaneocuboid joints. In combination, these features indicate a foot well adapted for striding bipedalism. However, the H. naledi foot differs from modern humans in having …

Learning From “Dirty Jobs:” Reflection On Work In The Classroom, Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

This article will examine how the work environment presented through popular culture can enrich and extend ideas of work in a community college curriculum. The article presents the context and pedagogy of utilizing notions of “dirty jobs” in the classroom and highlights the discoveries made about theories of work in the process. Students documented these discoveries using three writing assignments. These scaffolded assignments created individual ethnographic responses to the key question: “What is Work”? By using meta-cognitive teaching practices and popular culture, students were able to use the guided writing activities to explore their individual notions of work, career, and …

Classified Information: The Newsletter Of The Lloyd Sealy Library, Lloyd Sealy Library, Cuny John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

Classified Information was a publication that informed the College about Library services, personnel, upcoming events, new technologies, and available resources.

Gurkha Soldiers As An Intercultural Moment On The European Battlefields Of The Great War, Frank Jacob

Publications and Research

The article analyzes the role of the Gurkhas during the First World War to explain the intercultural contacts as they were created by the multi-ethnicity of the troops that were recruited for the Great War throughout the British Empire.

Teacher-As-Researcher Paradigm For Sign Language Teachers: Toward Evidence-Based Pedagogies For Improved Learner Outcomes, Russell S. Rosen, Meredith Turdetaub, Mary Delouise, Sarah Drake

Publications and Research

In the teaching of sign languages as foreign languages (FLs), teachers instruct learners in vocabulary and conversational grammar. In doing so they frequently notice that some learners are able to learn and produce vocabulary and use correct grammar, whereas others struggle. For a better understanding of learners' learning processes and their own pedagogical approaches, FL teachers turn to research studies on the teaching and learning of FLs. However, those studies are often largely inapplicable to their in-classroom practices. To resolve this problem, this article proposes and explicates teacher-as-researcher as a research paradigm for teachers' pedagogical development to bring about improved …

Humanitarianism's History Of The Singular, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

In “The New Universalism” Daniel Bertrand Monk and Andrew Herscher bring together global history and global humanitarianism to argue the emergence of a new (perverse) universal singular—a monadological refugee and form of refuge that threaten to efface both. By putting shelter and displacement side by side, they insightfully point us to different global patterns, such as the turn to the principle of the particular. Monk and Herscher read these patterns against the grain, offering us—almost in passing—a new history of humanitarianism.

Renaissance Humanism And The Ottoman 'Other' - Discourse Construction, Position And Power, Aramis Miranda-Reyes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 had an overwhelming geopolitical impact on Western Europe which included a discursive shift that depended greatly on the ideological construction of this event by its contemporaries for its consequences. In other words, the nature of Western European discourse subsequent to the Fall of Constantinople was rooted in the psychological impact this loss of territory had in contemporary secular and church leaders as well as their functionaries, many of which were key humanist figures. Consequently, Renaissance writers who constructed the Ottomans as 'others', were also writing within a context of power relations. In this …

Anthropophagic Queer: A Study On Abjected Bodies And Brazilian Queer Theory, Joao Nemi Neto

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project analyzes contemporary Brazilian literature and film in order to discuss queer theory and its ability to resonate with, and bring to light, specifically Brazilian concerns. The main argument of this dissertation is that, on one hand, such ideas and theories may change local perspectives; and that, on the other, they are themselves changed by local contexts. Therefore my analysis focuses on the representation of same-sex desire in Brazil throughout the 20^th century and a reading of queer theory with a Brazilian perspective in mind. In order to do that, I use the concept of Antropofagia. Anthropophagy …

Singing Motherhood: First Time Mothers' Experiences Singing To Their Infants, Margaret Mia Pixley

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Mothers have sung to their children for centuries. Because singing provides an opportunity for self-expression and connection with others, understanding how first time mothers experience this age old practice might help us understand how singing facilitates a woman's developing relationship with herself as a mother and with her new infant. To date, little research exists on this particular function and experience of first time maternal singing. In this qualitative phenomenological study, 16 first time mothers with infants one year and under were interviewed about their experiences singing to their babies and were also asked to write a one-time diary entry …

Environmental Expertise In The Age Of Research: Institutional Process And Environmental Science In The American Far West, 1950-2014., Nathan D. Woods

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on how academic experts have gone about creating university- based programs in Environmental Science (ES). Since the 1940's, with the emergence of the postwar research economy, the U.S higher education system has increasingly become a vector of institutional change, innovation, and economic growth. This has had a dramatic impact on the social role of knowledge and collective expectations for faculty and expert work. In this context, academic experts in the mid 1960's championed a movement to develop university-based programs integrating interdisciplinary environmental research with the expert use of science in decision-making. I pay particular attention to the …

A Critique Of Western Liberalism, Siddhant Issar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis I draw attention to the connections between Western liberalism, particularly exemplified by the idea of liberal freedom, and (in)visible modalities of oppression. In chapter 1, I examine how the philosophical basis of liberalism allows it to serve as a mediator of oppression. In chapter 2, through a genealogical analysis, I trace out the link between liberalism and political economy. Here I focus on the imbrication between (neo-)liberalism, capitalism, and the production of subjectivity. My analysis aims at revealing the specific form of subjectivity engendered under the sign of liberal freedom. In chapter 3, I take up post …

Disrupting The Narrative: Labor And Survivance For The Montauketts Of Eastern Long Island, Allison Manfra Mcgovern

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation focuses on how the Native Montauketts of eastern Long Island, New York, negotiated the forces of colonialism and capitalism between 1750 and 1885, a well-documented period when the Montaukett people's identity was challenged by the growing strength of the 'vanishing Indian' narrative. This project includes a critical analysis of previous anthropological research for decolonization to recognize the role anthropology has played in the construction of Native cultural identity, and to propose a new narrative. This is accomplished by investigating the historicity of colonialism, deconstructing the categories of difference that were established and re-established to accommodate colonial policies, and …

Getting Out Of The Ghetto: Harm Reduction, Drug User Health, And The Transformation Of Social Policy In New York, Rachel Faulkner-Gurstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a qualitative study of the emergence and evolution of harm reduction drug policies in New York City. It examines harm reduction as a case of the institutionalization of a public health policy movement. Harm reduction seeks to treat the medical and social consequences of drug use without requiring abstinence. The dissertation examines the process by which harm reduction has managed, in the words of one informant, to 'get out of the ghetto' and become increasingly integrated into New York's public health establishment. Harm reduction has undergone three stages of institutionalization. It began as an activist policy movement. …

Carl Schmitt And Political Catholicism: Friend Or Foe?, Brian J. Fox

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The scholarship on controversial German constitutional lawyer and political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) has long accepted what can be called a "standard narrative" as regards his intellectual development. This narrative treats Schmitt as, on the whole, a "Catholic" intellectual and "political theologian" until the mid-1920s when he turns decidedly towards a secular decisionism. Commentators frequently point to Schmitt's non-canonical second marriage in 1926 as the biographically salient factor in dating a turn from an early association with political Catholicism to his later nationalist authoritarianism. This later approach to politics led Schmitt to promote plebiscitary dictatorship in the last years of …

View From The Front Gate: A Comparative Study Of Nyc Schools From A College Admissions Perspective, Sharon Hardy

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study evaluated patterns of college applications from NYC Schools to CUNY. Specifically, a cohort of former large high schools that were reorganized into small schools of choice (SSCs) under the City's Children First education plan were studied. Coupled with the assessments of college admissions directors, the study concluded that despite an increase in applications, the outcomes of student academic quality and college preparation from a college admissions perspective were mixed.

Communication, Labor, And Communicative Labor, Rachel Mckinney

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project looks at the work we do to understand, to be understood, and to act on the basis of such understanding. Communicative labor is an important and under-theorized aspect of communication, and one that significantly impacts our epistemic, social and political lives. In this dissertation I take such labor as my object of analysis, and show how it bears on speakers and contexts.

First I provide an analysis of labor suitable for characterizing unwaged, immaterial and reproductive labor, and argue that such an analysis helps make sense of language systems ' the common pool resource systems that allow speakers …