Digital Commons Network^™

"Because I'M Neither Gringa Nor Latina, Because I Am Not Any One Thing": Children Of Colombian And Dominican Immigrants Negotiating Identities Within (Trans)National Social Fields, Debora Upegui-Hernandez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores how Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants living in New York City negotiate multiple identities, selves, cultures, and histories within transnational social fields. In other words, children of immigrants grow up in the midst of multiple cultures and juggle multiple sets of cultural norms, values, and expectations, their parents' and those of mainstream `American' culture, while they maintain transnational ties to the home country of their parents. This study contributes to the social psychological literature about Dominican and Colombian children of immigrants by introducing a transnational framework to understand their experiences growing up in-between cultures and borders. …

“We Went To The Hills": Four Afghan Life Stories, James M. Weir

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines four Afghan life stories for prevalent micro-historical perspectives on shared Afghan macro-historical experiences. The introduction explains my background, motivations and objectives for conducting life history research in Afghanistan in 2004 and 2005. The first chapter outlines an approach applied to examining life stories that addresses three interrelated questions: first, how the narrator's presentation is related to the memory of the actual events narrated (biographical chronology), second, how a narrative image/s of a person's past is established in relationships to individually significant audience/s (narrative self / audience), and third, how interrelationships between the individual …

Policing: A Sociologist’S Response To An Anthropological Account, Peter Moskos

Publications and Research

Social science writing should not ape quantitative science in format, structure, or style. If we can’t explain ourselves to others in a style both illuminating and interesting, we won’t and don’t deserve to be taken seriously. Too many in the Ivory Tower cling to the belief that research and academic writing must conform to a “scientific” format. Quality writing is more art than science. To be relevant, writing need not be – indeed should not be – rooted in a limited model of “hypothesis, replicable experiment, findings, discussion.” The more jargon and sociobabble we anthropologists, sociologists, and ethnographers spew out, …

Demystifying The Irb: Human Subjects Research In Academic Libraries, Maura A. Smale

Publications and Research

Many academic librarians are interested in pursuing research studies that involve students, faculty, and other library patrons; these projects must be approved by an institutional review board (IRB). This article reviews federal requirements and regulations for human subjects research and explains the IRB application process. The author discusses common types of research projects undertaken by academic librarians that require IRB approval and offers suggestions for successful navigation through the IRB process. Academic librarians should embrace research involving human subjects because the results contribute to the corpus of scholarly knowledge in library and information science as well as in higher education.

Undergraduate Bulletin 2010-2011, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

College Bulletins

No abstract provided.

Forget Burial: Illness, Narrative, And The Reclamation Of Disease, Marty Melissa Fink

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Through a theoretical and archival analysis of HIV/AIDS literature, this dissertation argues that the AIDS crisis is not an isolated incident that is now "over," but a striking culmination of a long history of understanding illness through narratives of queer sexual decline and national outsiderhood. Literary representations of HIV/AIDS can be read as a means of resistance to the stigmatization of people of color, women, immigrants, and queers, debunking the narratives that vilify these subjects as threats to national security and health. In drawing connections between illness, history, and the African diaspora, my work adopts a queer theoretical approach to …

Mensura Incognita: Queer Kinship, Camp Aesthetics, And Juvenal's Ninth Satire, Michael Broder

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The dissertation addresses four problematic aspects of scholarship on Juvenal 9. The first two are matters of reception history: first, the poem has been understudied; and second, most major extant studies of the poem have been grossly or subtly homophobic. The other two problems are matters of literary criticism: Juvenal's ninth satire has traditionally been read as an attack on homosexuality, when in fact it is neither an attack, nor is it about homosexuality. The current study addresses each of these problems, reassessing the ninth satire in the context of queer theory and camp aesthetics. Chapter One traces the homophobic …

Teaching Style: An Investigation Of New York City Public High School Teacher Dress Practices, Anne J. Brownstein

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades there has been increasing interest in regulating teacher appearance in the schools. While there is a great deal of anecdotal data available about what dress standards for teachers should be, to the best of the researcher's knowledge no one has undertaken scholarly research to investigate teacher attitudes towards their constructions of self, self-as-teacher, and educational philosophies as expressed by dress practices.

Predicated upon the theory that the study of self presentation provides a window through which we can gain insight into these constructions, this dissertation investigates how a sample of nine New York City public high school …

We Call Ourselves By Many Names: Storytelling And Inter-Minority Coalition-Building, Celina Su

Publications and Research

Scholars debate whether new immigrants will join minority native-born groups, especially African-Americans, in battling racial disparities, income inequalities, and discrimination in the United States. Although scholars have investigated inter-minority coalition-building in the context of electoral politics, a substantial share of newer immigrant social and political action has not been formalized. Social change organizations play an integral role in less formalized politics. The article draws upon ethnographic data on two case study organizations to investigate how they built coalitions between immigrants and non-immigrants. It pinpoints the ways in which they engaged in storytelling to emphasize multiple identity – namely, how any …

"From Port-Au-Prince To Hollywood: The Trope Of The Zombi(E) In American Literature", Pitetti M. Connor

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

The Gothic Flip: Using The Supernatural To Fight For Morality, Kathryn Gelsone

Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

Performance Management Process Report: John Jay College Year End Results 2009-2010, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

No abstract provided.

Las Representaciones Ideológicas Del Lenguaje: Discurso Glotopolítico Y Panhispanismo, José Del Valle, Elvira Arnoux

Publications and Research

Linguistic ideologies are defined and placed in the context of glottopolitical studies (or political approaches to language). Ideological representations of Spanish in the context of MERCOSUR and the panhispanic community are discussed.

Addressing And Overcoming Barriers To Youth Civic Engagement, Maria J. D'Agostino, Anne Visser

Publications and Research

Youth civic engagement—and particularly youth participation in properly designed youth programs—has indisputably favorable outcomes for the young people involved (Saito, 2006; Pancer et al., 2002; Flanagan et al., 2002). This research reviews the wide-ranging literature available on youth civic engagement in urban communities. Using content analysis, we identify organizations involved in youth engagement as well as barriers faced by organizations engaged in this policy arena. Our research also identifies 15 broad types of barriers that organizations seeking to encourage youth civic engagement encounter in building and delivering successful youth engagement programs. In addition, we discuss the emergent social and political …

How Subways And High Speed Railways Have Changed Taiwan: Transportation Technology, Urban Culture, And Social Life, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Teaching The Process Of Molecular Phylogeny And Systematics: A Multi-Part Inquiry-Based Exercise, Nathan H. Lents, Oscar E. Cifuentes, Anthony Carpi

Publications and Research

Three approaches to molecular phylogenetics are demonstrated to biology students as they explore molecular data from Homo sapiens and four related primates. By analyzing DNA sequences, protein sequences, and chromosomal maps, students are repeatedly challenged to develop hypotheses regarding the ancestry of the five species. Although these exercises were designed to supplement and enhance classroom instruction on phylogeny, cladistics, and systematics in the context of a postsecondary majors-level introductory biology course, the activities themselves require very little prior student exposure to these topics. Thus, they are well suited for students in a wide range of educational levels, including a biology …

The Twenty-Five Maiden Ladies’ Tomb And Predicaments Of The Feminist Movement In Taiwan, Anru Lee

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Beyond The Youth Gap In Understanding Political Violence, Colette Daiute

Publications and Research

"Youth are never taken seriously, and we sometimes have ideas that would be good for all people." ~ Alex, Croatia

"... Some things do depend on us; war, consequences of the war, poverty; the influence of the church interfering with the state affairs, which must not be so. " ~ Ljubicia, Serbia

As we hear in these comments by two teenagers who have grown up in the shadow of political violence, their generation is aware of the past and its legacies. These brief quotes mention many details that young people in easier situations may not notice: "consequences of the war," …

Conceptualizing Hybridity: Deconstructing Boundaries Through The Hybrid, Haj Yazdiha

Publications and Research

History has shown that the notion of hybridity has existed far before it was popularized in postcolonial theory. However, in this time after imperialism, globalization has both expanded the reach of Western culture, and has allowed a process by which the West constantly interacts with the East. This hybridity is evident in every snapshot of society, from trends in "fusion" cuisine to the adoption of Caribbean rhythms in popular music. Ethnic Americans are marked with hyphenated identities: "Indian-American," "Asian-American," illuminating the lived experience of ties to a dominant culture coinciding with the cultural codes of a third world culture. This …

The Critical Aesthetics Of Disorder: A Porteña Crisis Of Size, Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo

Publications and Research

In Argentina, contemporary notions of progress originate within the whitening projects of the nineteenth century. In this work I propose that the imprints of these Colonial modernization projects are still visible on the porteña body. For this reason I examine the Porteño fashion industry alongside the pervasive Barbie culture. I believe that Porteñas embody the national crisis of identity. I seek to pose the possibility — instead of arguing the fact — that the fashion industry's power over Porteñas (women who live in Buenos Aires Capital) toughened post the economic crisis of 2001. The reason for this is rooted in …

Commentary: Culture Of Poverty: Don't Call It A Comeback!, Marnie Brady, Kathleen Dunn, Jamie Mccallum

Publications and Research

Commentary on the culture of poverty argument.

The Ticker, December 7, 2009

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.

John Jay Sentinel Volume 2, No 2, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

Student Newspapers

No abstract provided.

Radical Theatricality: Jongleuresque Performance On The Early Spanish Stage, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

Radical Theatricality describes medieval and early modern oral traditions through the culture of “jongleuresque” performers: juglares, trovadores, and other itinerant players, who have been relegated to the fringes of theatre history.

Nonknowledge: The Bibliographical Organization Of Ignorance, Stupidity, Error, And Unreason: Part Two, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Starting with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom paradigm in information science it is possible to derive a model of the opposite of knowledge having hierarchical qualities. A range of counterpoints to concepts in the knowledge hierarchy can be identified and ascribed the overall term “nonknowledge.” This model creates a conceptual framework for understanding the connections between topics such as error, ignorance, stupidity, folly, popular misconceptions, and unreason by locating them as levels or phases of nonknowledge. The concept of nonknowledge links heretofore disconnected discourses on these individual topics by philosophers, psychologists, historians, sociologists, satirists, and others. Subject headings provide access to the categories …

State Of The College 2009: Toward John Jay @ 50, Jeremy Travis

Reports and Publications from John Jay College

No abstract provided.

Oldest Evidence Of Toolmaking Hominins In A Grassland-Dominated Ecosystem, Thomas W. Plummer, Peter W. Ditchfield, Laura C. Bishop, John D. Kingston, Joseph V. Ferraro, David R. Braun, Fritz Hertel, Richard Potts

Publications and Research

Background Major biological and cultural innovations in late Pliocene hominin evolution are frequently linked to the spread or fluctuating presence of C4 grass in African ecosystems. Whereas the deep sea record of global climatic change provides indirect evidence for an increase in C4 vegetation with a shift towards a cooler, drier and more variable global climatic regime beginning approximately 3 million years ago (Ma), evidence for grassland-dominated ecosystems in continental Africa and hominin activities within such ecosystems have been lacking. Methodology/Principal Findings We report stable isotopic analyses of pedogenic carbonates and ungulate enamel, as well as faunal data from ∼2.0 …

Journals Not Included In Biosis Have A Notable Impact In Biology, Philip Barnett, Claudia Lascar

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Advocate, May 2009, Vol. [20], No. [7], Gc Advocate

The Advocate

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

From the Editor’s Desk: Writer’s Block (p. 2)

Adjuncting: Stifling the Economy of Ideas. Renée McGarry (p. 4)

Political Analysis: Letter from Dakar. Michael Busch (p. 7)

Foul Play at Bard? Controversy Ensues After College Terminates Kovel. John Boy (p. 8)

Midlife Crisis for a Movement Icon: At 95, the “Peace Pentagon” Building is Hardly in its Dotage; Is it Nonetheless Nearing the End of Its Days? John Otrompke (p. 10)

Masthead (p. 2)

CUNY News in Brief (p. 3)

Student Enrollment to Hit All-Time High

Even on the Cheap, Education Costs are Difficult to Bear

While …

The Ticker, April 27, 2009

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.