Digital Commons Network^™

Censuring The Praise Of Alienation: Interstices Of Ante-Alienation In Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease, And Arrow Of God, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

Interrogating Abiola Irele’s largely unchallenged praise of alienation, this essay is bold and insightful in returning to Chinua Achebe’s African trilogy to examine the subtler, equally dangerous agent of externality: ante-alienation, or social alienation within traditional African culture, which precedes race-based, colonial alienation. This ante-alienation challenges Négritude’s paradisiacal view of Africa and raises questions about Africans always being happiest with themselves within their traditional culture.

Shamanic Knowledge: The Challenge To Information Science, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

Shamanism, a form of healing involving soul travel and trance found in many traditional societies the world over, has been studied by anthropologists and scholars of religious studies. Shamanic traditions are characterized by specialized, restricted, and esoteric knowledge domains that are encoded and communicated through condensed and mystified symbols and reproduced in ceremonies. Shamanic knowledge is acquired through direct experience of the numinous, usually in the process of overcoming personal affliction. Information science so far has been silent on shamanic knowledge. This is understandable given the latter discipline's focus on formal documentary information systems and advanced information technologies. But in …

Cultures In The Making: An Examination Of The Ethical And Methodological Implications Of Collaborative Research, Chrstina Siry, Carolyne Ali-Khan, Mark Zuss

Publications and Research

This paper explores ethical and methodological implications of collaborative research, and we discuss our examination of ways to work towards participatory, ethical relationships in research. Our core concerns pertain to the experiential, lived and qualitative relations within emergent research communities. Questions that have guided us include: What does "we" mean in research practice? How do we become a community of researchers? What forms of relations are shaped in the continuous process of inquiry? Whose interests are served? How can a community of researchers and their participants, formed and sustained by reciprocal, ethical relations, of trust, shared knowledges, curiosity and friendship, …

Religion, Feminism And Abortion: The Regulation Of Assisted Reproduction In Two Catholic Countries, Richard Storrow

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Sustainability: Can Law Meet The Challenge?, Rebecca Bratspies

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Undergraduate Bulletin 2011-2012, John Jay College Of Criminal Justice

College Bulletins

No abstract provided.

Cultural Competence In Urban Affairs And Planning, Tom Angotti, Marly Pierre-Louis, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, Sigmund Shipp, Angela Tovar

Publications and Research

In the Fall of 2009, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (CENTRO) undertook the Centro Cultural Competence Initiative (CCI) with the support of a one-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The goal of the CCI is to address the need for culturally appropriate work in a variety of professions by training students to be culturally competent practitioners. In the Fall of 2010, the Urban Affairs and Planning Department at Hunter College joined CENTRO as a partner in this initiative. Full time Professors Sigmund Shipp, Laxmi Ramasubramanian, and Tom Angotti worked …

Re-Locating Recycling: A Contextual Analysis Of Recycling Behavior In The Usa And Germany, Tsai-Shiou Hsieh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While recycling remains a common research topic within environmentally responsible behavior studies, it is little known how contextual factors such as physical environments, social interactions, and cultural backgrounds influence people's attitudes and behavior. This research adopts an ecological framework and conducts a mixed-method qualitative inquiry of whether and how relocation has impacts on people's ecological thinking and behavior in their everyday life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted within two groups of people: Americans who moved to Munich and Germans who moved to New York City. Interviews were conducted in participants' homes or workplaces. Pictures were taken inside the apartments, in common …

Securitizing Gender: Identity, Biometrics, And Transgender Bodies At The Airport, Paisley Currah, Tara Mulqueen

Publications and Research

It is widely assumed that the more information surveillance apparatuses can collect about an individual, the less risk she poses. In this article, we examine how gender figures into and potentially disrupts the link between identity and security. Our analysis centers on one very particular event: the confusion that erupts at the airport when US Transportation Security Administration agents perceive a conflict between the gender marked on one's papers, the image of one's body produced by a machine, and/or an individual's perceived gender presentation. Gender has been so deeply naturalized—as immutable, as easily apprehended, and as existing before and outside …

A Microfluidic Device To Establish Concentration Gradients Using Reagent Density Differences, Qingjun Kong, Richard A. Able, Jr., Veronica Dudu, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

Microfabrication has become widely utilized to generate controlled microenvironments that establish chemical concentration gradients for a variety of engineering and life science applications. To establish microfluidic flow, the majority of existing devices rely upon additional facilities, equipment, and excessive reagent supplies, which together limit device portability as well as constrain device usage to individuals trained in technological disciplines. The current work presents our laboratory-developed bridged microLane system, which is a stand-alone device that runs via conventional pipette loading and can operate for several days without need of external machinery or additional reagent volumes. The bridged microLane is a two-layer polydimethylsiloxane …

Information Literacy And Social Power, Jonathan Cope

Publications and Research

An examination of information literacy literature using the perspective of social power research.

Introduction To Dominican Blackness, Silvio Torres-Saillant

Publications and Research

This study is a reflection on the complexity of racial thinking and racial discourse in Dominican society.

Theory, History, And Methodological Positivism In The Anderson-Thompson Debate, Abraham Jacob Walker

Publications and Research

This article repositions the famous debate between Edward Thompson and Perry Anderson in relation to major figures of comparative-historical sociology. The author shows that the debate was — in the last instance — an argument about methodology.

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 …

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 …

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

College Bulletins

No abstract provided.

Disputas De Origen: Américo Castro Y La Institucionalización De La Filología En La Argentina, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

En este trabajo se revisa el proceso de institucionalización de la filología en la Argentina a partir del estudio de un conjunto de documentos desconocidos hasta el presente: las cartas que Américo Castro, primer director del Instituto de Filología de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, que dirigió a Ramón Menéndez Pidal y Tomás Navarro Tomás, responsables del Centro de Estudios Históricos de Madrid. El análisis de estos materiales permite demostrar que la fundación del Instituto supuso la articulación de posiciones encontradas respecto de la definición de su agenda institucional. Los discursos culturales del nacionalismo y del hispanismo, así como ciertas …

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’S Decolonizing Ritual De Conocimiento, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

Gloria E. Anzaldúa’s work makes up one of the many Chican@ works that contribute another history, a history repressed by the national discourses on both sides of the border. Influenced by antecedents of U.S. Hispanic Literature who superposed “official” history with another history, Chicano activists had already enacted a retrieval of pre-conquest histories to revive their people’s historical consciousness. As Saldívar-Hull states in “Mestiza Consciousness and Politics: Gloria Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/ La frontera,” the publication of Borderlands/ La Frontera distinguished itself from the Chicano movement’s as it unveiled the curtain that hid the Aztec goddesses and kept aspects of pre-conquest history …

The Pencil, The Pin, The Table, The Bowl And The Wheel, Valerie Allen

Publications and Research

The commodity created under global capitalism originates from everywhere and seems to have been made by everyone. Endlessly fungible, it is also endlessly divisible. Analysis of the commodity reveals the indissoluble link between commodification and technologization. Although the medieval commodity is a very different kind of object, not issuing from an economy dedicated to commodity production, and being produced more regionally, the link between production and technology applies to the Middle Ages as much as it does to now. Medieval technology, in particular road-building, is commonly regarded as a regression in comparison to Roman engineering skills. I argue, however, for …

"If You See Something, Say Something": The Power Of The 'War On Terrorism' To Name What We See, Polly Sylvia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation seeks to understand the cultural politics of the "war on terrorism" through a case study of the "If You See Something, Say Something" campaign within the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority Subway System. Drawing upon literature that focuses on an understanding of the affective transmission of culture, this research seeks to understand this particular campaign as a technique of social control. Through a content analysis of the advertisements of this campaign and a performative methodology that analyzes the performance of security within the subway system, an understanding of the connections this local campaign (as a security campaign) …

A Critical And Cultural Poetics Of The End: Self, Space, And Volatility In Los Angeles, Pamela Albanese

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

A Critical and Cultural Poetics of the End: Self, Space, and Volatility in Los Angeles delineates the correspondences between Los Angeles spaces--exterior, topographical, architectural, and imaginary--and aspects of the self--interiority, identity, experience, and desire--in fictional and non-fictional depictions of Los Angeles. Through close readings of key Los Angeles novels, essays, and films, this project emphasizes how the narrative "I" traverses urban space, focusing on the dissolution of boundaries between self and place. Los Angeles' sprawling, decentralized layout and rapidly-shifting landscape have a profound influence on narrative identity, generating a volatile and disquieting sense of self; this project also explores how …

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 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 …

Dancecult Bibliography: Books, Articles, Theses, Lectures, And Films About Electronic Dance Music Cultures, Eliot Bates

Publications and Research

Dancecult is a forum for the electronic dance music culture (EDMC) research network, whose doors opened in April, 2005. Presently, Dancecult manifests as a mailing list and rich informational website. With around 180 members (and growing) worldwide, Dancecult-l is an interdisciplinary mailing list for graduate students, scholars, and other parties interested in the study and documentation of EDMCs from proto-disco through post-rave formations. As a critical information exchange hub, Dancecult-l enables resource sharing and collaboration between international researchers of club cultures, raves, techno, electronica, doof, digital arts and other manifestations of EDMC. Members come from various different disciplines, operating in …

Subchronic Infusion Of The Product Of Inflammation Prostaglandin J2 Models Sporadic Parkinson's Disease In Mice, Sha-Ron Pierre, Marijke Am Lemmens, Maria E. Figueiredo-Pereira

Publications and Research

Background Chronic neuroinflammation is implicated in Parkinson's disease (PD). Inflammation involves the activation of microglia and astrocytes that release high levels of prostaglandins. There is a profound gap in our understanding of how cyclooxygenases and their prostaglandin products redirect cellular events to promote PD neurodegeneration. The major prostaglandin in the mammalian brain is prostaglandin D2, which readily undergoes spontaneous dehydration to generate the bioactive cyclopentenone prostaglandins of the J2 series. These J2 prostaglandins are highly reactive and neurotoxic products of inflammation shown in cellular models to impair the ubiquitin/proteasome pathway and cause the accumulation of ubiquitinated proteins. PD is a …

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 …

Ghost Dances: A Trans-Movement Manifesto, Susan Stryker

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

Several things coincided to shape the space from which this lecture emerged. The first was an email from a list I'm on, soliciting creative, artistic responses to climate change. The second was a call for proposals for a symposium on "subversive imaginaries." The third, an ongoing conversation with a dancer friend about critical embodiment practices. Fourth, the tangle of thoughts sorting themselves out into various bits of prose and syllabi then being demanded by editors and administrators. Fifth, the backdrop of an historical presidential election soliciting us all to dwell upon "the fierce urgency of now." And finally, the call …

Playing With A Different Sex: Academic Writing On Women In Rock And Pop, Monica Berger

Publications and Research

This annotated bibliography of academic writing on women in rock in pop should provide an overview of most of the scholarly literature on the topic and reflects my personal interest in methodology. When I returned to graduate school in the late 1990s to study American studies and popular culture, I discovered that academe had changed considerably from my undergraduate days when I studied history of art. Although traditional academic disciplines continue, I found that in the humanities and social sciences, there were no longer neat categories for disciplines and disciplines no longer were isolated from each other.

The topic of …

Methodology Appendix: On The Craft Of Sociology In The Digital Era, Jessie Daniels

Publications and Research

An appendix to the book that explores the methodology of studying the Internet.

The Rise Of Private Equity Media Ownership In The United States: A Public Interest Perspective, Matthew Crain

Publications and Research

This article examines the logic, scope, and implications of the influx of private equity takeovers in the United States media sector in the last decade. The strategies and aims of private equity firms are explained in the context of the financial landscape that has allowed them to flourish; their aggressive expansion into media ownership is outlined in detail. Particular attention is paid to the public interest concerns raised by private equity media ownership relating to the frenzied nature of the buyout market, profit maximization strategies, and the heavy debt burdens imposed on acquired firms. The article concludes with discussion of …