Digital Commons Network^™

Art To Educate: A History Of Public Art In The New York City Public Schools, 1890–1976, Michele Cohen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

"Art to Educate" chronicles a history of public art in the New York City public schools from the beginning until the passage of the City's Percent-for-Art Law in 1982. Its purpose is twofold: to bring to light public artworks in school buildings that are typically ignored in discussions of public art and to create a historical framework for understanding this collection.

To contextualize this collection, "Art to Educate" links public art in schools to school architecture and the Board of Education's school construction programs over the last century; to a consideration of educational theory and viewpoints in art education; and …

The Ideal Catalogue House: Mail-Order Architecture And Consumer Culture, 1914–1930, Evie T. Joselow

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the mail-order house and its relation to aspects of consumer culture, establishing a context for understanding its popular appeal and its notable presence in the competitive housing market between 1918 and 1930. Fueled by a demand for housing, and widely promoted during a period of economic prosperity which ushered in an interest in consumerism associated with home ownership, the mail-order house, assembled from pre-cut lumber and sold by mail-order suppliers, represented an affordable and appealing means for consumers to acquire the aesthetic and material elements associated with the ideal house and home.

The dissertation articulates the popular …

"To Sew Or To Sow?” European Gender Images And Development In Rural Ecuador, Barbara Grunenfelder-Elliker

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis examines the impact of a gender specific Swiss development project on Andean artisans women who struggle to intensify their craft production in the face of an increasing subsistence crisis characteristic among rural small producers around the globe. The selection of a project which has proven sustainable over a number of years allowed the author to conduct fieldwork in three different settings (1992-1995): among two hundred artisan women from eleven rural communities in Ecuador's Azuay province, who embroider table linen and apparel for export; among Ecuadorian and expatriate Swiss development specialists in Quito and Cuenca; and, to a limited …

Some Consequences Of Semantic Externalism, Consuelo Preti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Semantic externalism is the view that meaning and mental content are determined by relations to the world of objects and properties outside the physical boundaries of the subject of mental states. What you mean by your words–what you're thinking when you're thinking about something–is essentially constituted by the world at large. It has become customary to formulate externalism in terms of so-called twin earth cases–cases where (some kinds of) content do not supervene on inner states, but this formulation can be shown to be too limited to be of any great use in characterizing a theory of mind. A more …

The Impact Of Presentence Investigations On Plea Bargained Dispositions In Kings County Supreme Court, Joseph G. Enright

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study examines the presentence function of probation from an historical and empirical perspective which argues that the purported diminution of the role of the presentence report (PSR) in the sentencing process–as a result of sentence bargaining–is more reflective of a prevailing disenchantment with the rehabilitative ideal than any thoroughly considered, reliable validation of the PSR's dispensibility. It is demonstrated, through a review of the literature, that poorly conceived, polemically biased empirical research has helped to perpetuate the notion that these reports have little value. A survey of studies and inquiries conducted in New York over the past twenty years …