Digital Commons Network^™

The Ethical Importance Of Being Human: God And Humanism In Levinas's Philosophy, Pat J. Gehrke

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Gendering The City, Gendering The Nation: Contesting Urban Space In Fes, Morocco, Rachel Newcomb

Faculty Publications

An actor-centered approach to the gendering of urban spaces demonstrates how individuals respond to competing ideologies in determining the rules that surround women’s presence in urban, Muslim spaces. This article examines how women in the Ville Nouvelle of Fes, Morocco draw on local conceptualizations of hospitality, kinship, and shame as they debate the gendering of four urban areas: the street, the café, a cosmopolitan exercise club, and cyber space. Women’s tactics for occupying social space indicate the resilience of local culture in the face of ideologies that attempt to posit a specific vision of women in the Moroccan nation state.

Culture In Our Midst, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

Culture, like race, class, gender, sexual orientation and wealth is one of many ways in which the law is not neutral. Indeed, culture is a source of law. Yet, as traditional legal positivists have taught us, the law or legal doctrine can prove to be more powerful than culture, often outlasting it. The “mirror image” theory states that the laws of a particular locale reflect the culture of that locale. The law merely serves as enforcement of the common decency, propriety and morality of that culture. Not only is this understanding appealingly simple, it is often invoked by judges and …

Culture As Justification, Not Excuse, Elaine M. Chiu

Faculty Publications

The wide discussion of cultural defenses over the last twenty years has produced very little actual change in the criminal law. This Article urges a reorientation of our approach thus far to cultural defenses and aspires to move the languishing discussion to a more productive place. The new perspective it proposes is justification. The Article asks the criminal law to make doctrinal room for defendants to argue that their allegedly criminal acts are justified acts, and not excused acts, based on the values and norms of their minority cultures. Currently, the criminal law deals with such acts of minority defendants …

The New Religious Prisons And Their Retributivist Commitments, Marc O. Degirolami

Faculty Publications

The rise of the religious, or "faith-based," prison at the turn of the twenty-first century bears witness to the remarkable resilience of religion in shaping the philosophy of punishment. In the last decade, prisons that incorporate religion in various ways have sprouted around the country and there are some indications, though preliminary, inconclusive, and hotly contested, that inmates who participate in religious instruction and “programming” recidivate at lower rates than those who do not. The early success of these programs (and, some say, the preferential treatment accorded to participants in them) has resulted in high demand and long waiting lists. …

Space, Place, And Speech: The Expressive Topography, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Speech And Spatial Tactics, Timothy Zick

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Deconstructing Evangelical Theology?, Fernando L. Canale

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Naming Racism: A Conceptual Look At Internalized Racism In Us Schools, Rita Kohli, R.N. Johnson, L H. Perez

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Parenting And Peer-Group Behavior In Cultural Context, David A. Nelson, Larry J. Nelson, Criag H. Hart, Chongming Yang, Shenghua Jin

Faculty Publications

Whether specific patterns of parenting are similarly associated with child peer group behavior in diverse cultural contexts has been a fascinating topic of inquiry. From classic anthropological studies dating back to the early twentieth century to the current interest in cross-cultural studies, knowledge concerning the question of universality and cultural variation in parenting linkages to childhood adjustment has expanded at an unprecedented rate (e.g., Harkness & Super, 2002). As the general field of parenting research has uncovered distinctions in parenting styles and practices (e.g., Darling & Steinberg, 1993; hart, Newell, & Olsen, 2003), these concepts have increasingly been applied to …

Moving From A Grinding Halt: Expanding The Interpretation Of Ground Stone Through Ethnoarchaeology, Michael T. Searcy, Jaime Holthusen

Faculty Publications

Some of the most ubiquitous artifacts found at archaeological sites across Mesoamerica are manos and metates. Yet these important household implements continue to be underrepresented in the archaeological literature. This paper highlights recent ethnographic research on groundstone produced and used by four Mayan communities in Guatemala. We demonstrate how the size of grinding surfaces can be indicative of function, and how modern taboos can be examined to explore notions of gender. Groundstone from the site of La Quemada, Mexico is then analyzed in light of such inferences to evaluate the consistency of archaeological patterning with ethnographic observations.

An Ethnoarchaeological Analysis Of Human Functional Dynamics In The Volta Basin Of Ghana: Before And After The Akosombo Dam, By E. Kofi Agorsah, Joanna Casey

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Ottoman Qasr At Hisban: Architecture, Reform, And New Social Relations, Lynda Carroll, Adam Fenner, Oystein S. Labianca

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Military Sites Program Follows In The Footsteps Of Lieutenant Anthony Allaire, Steven D. Smith

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Mobile Element Based Phylogeny Of Old World Monkeys, Jinchuan Xing, Hui Wang, Kyudong Han, David A. Ray, Cheney H. Huang, Leona G. Chemnick, Caro Beth Stewart, Todd R. Disotell, Oliver A. Ryder, Mark A. Batzer

Faculty Publications

SINEs (Short INterspersed Elements) are a class of non-autonomous mobile elements that are states, making them useful genetic systems for phylogenetic studies. Alu elements are the most successful SINE in primate genomes and have been utilized for resolving primate phylogenetic relationships and human population genetics. However, no Alu based phylogenetic analysis has yet been performed to resolve relationships among Old World monkeys. Using both a computational approach and polymerase chain reaction display methodology, we identified 285 new Alu insertions from sixteen Old World monkey taxa that were informative at various levels of catarrhine phylogeny. We have utilized these elements along …

Tracking Alu Evolution In New World Primates, David A. Ray, Mark A. Batzer

Faculty Publications

Background: Alu elements are Short INterspersed Elements (SINEs) in primate genomes that have proven useful as markers for studying genome evolution, population biology and phylogenetics. Most of these applications, however, have been limited to humans and their nearest relatives, chimpanzees. In an effort to expand our understanding of Alu sequence evolution and to increase the applicability of these markers to non-human primate biology, we have analyzed available Alu sequences for loci specific to platyrrhine (New World) primates. Results: Branching patterns along an Alu sequence phylogeny indicate three major classes of platyrrhine-specific Alu sequences. Sequence comparisons further reveal at least three …

Watson Brake, A Middle Archaic Mound Complex In Northeast Louisiana, Joe W. Saunders, Rolfe D. Mandel, C. Garth Sampson, Charles M. Allen, E. Thurman Allen, Daniel A. Bush, James K. Feathers, Kristen J. Gremillion, C.T. Hallmark, H. Edwin Jackson, Jay K. Johnson, Reca Jones, Roger T. Saucier, Gary L. Stringer, Malcolm F. Vidrine

Faculty Publications

Middle Archaic earthen mound complexes in the lower Mississippi valley are remote antecedents of the famous but much younger Poverty Point earthworks. Watson Brake is the largest and most complex of these early mound sites. Wry extensive coring and stratigraphic studies, aided by 25 radiocarbon dates and six huninescence dates, show that minor earthworks were begun here at ca. 3500 B.C. in association with an oval arrangement of burned rock middens at the edge of a stream terrace. The full extent of the first earthworks is not yet known. Substantial moundraising began ca. 3350 B.C. and continued in stages until …

Paradox And The Consumption Of Authenticity Through Reality Television, Randall L. Rose, Stacy L. Wood

Faculty Publications

We position reality television within the broader category of consumer practices of authenticity seeking in a postmodern cultural context. The study draws on relevant perspectives from consumer research, literary criticism, sociology, and anthropology to argue that viewers of reality television encounter three elements of paradox in the process of constructing authenticity. The negotiation of each paradox exceeds the process of coping with or resolving their inherent contradictions to encompass the creation of new values. We argue that consumers blend fantastic elements of programming with indexical elements connected to their lived experiences to create a form of self-referential hyperauthenticity.

Big-Bodied Males Help Us Recognize That Females Have Big Pelves, Robert G. Tague

Faculty Publications

Schultz ([1949] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 7:401-424) presented a conundrum: among primates, sexual dimorphism of the pelvis is a developmental adjunct to dimorphism in other aspects of the body, albeit in the converse direction. Among species in which males are larger than females in body size, females are larger than males in some pelvic dimensions; species with little sexual dimorphism in nonpelvic size show little pelvic dimorphism. Obstetrical difficulty does not explain this relationship. The present study addresses this issue, evaluating the relationship between pelvic and femoral sexual dimorphism in 12 anthropoid species. The hypothesis is that species in which …

Acculturation To Western Society As A Risk Factor For High Blood Pressure: A Meta-Analytic Review, Timothy B. Smith, Patrick R. Steffen, Michael Larson, Leon Butler

Faculty Publications

Objective: A number of studies have documented that acculturation to Western society is related to an increase in blood pressure. Although there is evidence that higher socioeconomic status appears related to better cardiovascular health, increasing acculturation to Western society appears related to worse cardiovascular health. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the association between acculturation and blood pressure.

Method: Literature searches yielded 125 relevant research manuscripts, which were coded by teams of two independent raters. Measures of association (effect sizes) were extracted for both systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) readings. Random effects models were …

Haplotypes Produced From Rare Variants In The Promoter And Coding Regions Of Angiotensinogen Contribute To Variation In Angiotensinogen Levels, Xiaofeng Zhu, Laura Fejerman, Amy Luke, Adebowale Adeyemo, Richard S. Cooper

Faculty Publications

The most efficient study design to map genes underlying complex traits will be determined by assumptions about whether the genetic effects are likely to be due to relatively few common variants or multiple rare variants. To examine the possibility that rare variants may influence blood pressure, we sequenced a 6.8 kb region of the angiotensinogen (AGT) gene in 29 male Nigerians with high plasma AGT levels and 28 with low levels. The frequency of haplotypes produced from rare variants in the promoter and coding regions was significantly different between the two groups, and it is unlikely that this difference was …

Christian Environmentalism: Cosmos, Community, And Place, John R. Wood, Janel Curry, Steven C. Bouma-Prediger, Mark Bjelland, Susan P. Bratton

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Informe Técnico De Los Trabajos De Campo Del Proyecto Arqueológico Huambacho-Temporada 2004, David Chicoine, Jeisen Navarro

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Multiplex Polymerase Chain Reaction For Simultaneous Quantitation Of Human Nuclear, Mitochondrial, And Male Y-Chromosome Dna: Application In Human Identification, Jerilyn A. Walker, Dale J. Hedges, Benjamin P. Perodeau, Kate E. Landry, Nadica Stoilova, Meredith E. Laborde, Jaiprakash Shewale, Sudhir K. Sinha, Mark A. Batzer

Faculty Publications

Human forensic casework requires sensitive quantitation of human nuclear (nDNA), mitochondrial (mtDNA), and male Y-chromosome DNA from complex biomaterials. Although many such systems are commercially available, no system is capable of simultaneously quantifying all three targets in a single reaction. Most available methods either are not multiplex compatible or lack human specificity. Here, we report the development of a comprehensive set of human-specific, target-specific multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays for DNA quantitation. Using TaqMan-MGB probes, our duplex qPCR for nDNA/mtDNA had a linear quantitation range of 100 ng to 1 pg, and our triplex qPCR assay for nDNA/mtDNA/male Y …

Report Of Findings: The Search For Fort Balfour And Coosawhatchie Battlefield, Steven D. Smith

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

God Is A God Who Bears: Intensifying Schroeder's Critique Of Barth By Way Of Bonhoeffer's Confession Of Christ, Gary M. Simpson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Predicting Ordinary Kriging Errors Caused By Surface Roughness And Dissectivity, I-Kuai Hung

Faculty Publications

The magnitude of kriging errors varies in accordance with the surface properties. The purpose of this paper is to determine the association of ordinary kriging (OK) estimated errors with the local variability of surface roughness, and to analyze the suitability of probabilistic models for predicting the magnitude of OK errors from surface parameters. This task includes determining the terrain parameters in order to explain the variation in the magnitude of OK errors. The results of this research indicate that the higher order regression models, with complex interaction terms, were able to explain 95 per cent of the variation in the …

Coyote's Tale On The Old Oregon Trail: Challenging Cultural Memory Through Narrative At The Tamástslikt Cultural Institute, Jackson B. Miller

Faculty Publications

This essay examines the oppositional narratives presented in a Native American museum in order to explore the efficacy of narrative as both a strategy for resistance to hegemonic narratives of the settling of the West and a medium for sharing culture. The positioning of the museum visitor as co-participant in the museum’s narratives is also considered, with a particular focus on the relationships among narrator, story, and audience. Finally, the narrative of tribal life presented in the museum is evaluated for its potential as a vehicle for both cultural change and continuity.

Hurricane Ivan's Impact Along The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, G. W. Stone, N. D. Walker, S. A. Hsu, A. Babin, B. Liu, B. D. Keim, W. Teague, D. Mitchell, R. Leben

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Understanding Camden: The Revolutionary War Battle Of Camden As Revealed Through Historical, Archaeological, And Private Collections Analysis, James B. Legg, Steven D. Smith, Tamara S. Wilson

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.