Digital Commons Network^™

Rousseau's Gift To Geneva, Helena Rosenblatt

Publications and Research

People often seem to forget that Rousseau dedicated his Second Discourse to “The Republic of Geneva.” This is a shame because, in doing so, they miss precious clues not only about the meaning of the Discourse itself, but also about its place in Rousseau’s political thought as a whole.

It is no accident that Rousseau dedicated the Discourse on Inequality, his most radical work of all, to his hometown of Geneva; but it requires some research into the historical context to understand why. In Geneva a patrician ruling elite was using social contract theory to subvert the democratic principles …

“Sons Of Adam”: Text, Context, And The Early Modern African Subject, Herman L. Bennett

Publications and Research

Seeking to dislodge the prism that a singular political practice—represented as the story from savage to slave—informed the slave trade, this essay points to a distinct genealogy shaping the earliest encounters between Europeans and Africans.

Lost And Found: The Imagined Geographies Of American Studies, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

In the days after September 11th, 2001, and continuing until now, the national guard and other military personnel fanned out around New York City. Automatic rifles slung over their camouflaged shoulders, they "guarded" New York City's transportation stations, vital corners and thoroughfares, marquee buildings, and each and every bridge and tunnel entrance. Their comportment was usually cordial and rarely vigilant. Exuding the antithesis of an urban sensibility, they complemented the beefy boredom of the police who usually stood nearby, with an almost surreal sense of incredulity; not just "Why am I here?" but a sort of bafflement that anyone would …

Implementing A New Data Model For Simulating Process, Jochen Albrecht, Femke Reitsma

Publications and Research

The paper describes the development of a new methodological approach for simulating geographic processes through the development of a data model that represents a process. This methodology complements existing approaches to dynamic modelling, which focus on the states of the system at each time step, by storing and representing the processes that are implicit in the model. The data model, called nen, focuses existing modelling approaches on representing and storing process information, which provides advantages for querying and analysing processes. The flux simulation framework was created utilizing the nen data model to represent processes. This simulator includes basic classes for …

Reconfiguring Childhood Boys And Girls Growing Up Global, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Children are a spur, a commitment, a way of imaging the future—but all too often these sorts of phrases just rattle around a vacuum, their utterance the beginning and end of the commitment. We emphasize “the best interests of the child,”but this gloss provides a moral imperative to all manner of uncompleted projects and unfulfilled policies. Likewise, the use of children’s images or presence in public forums of all types gives a patina of honorableness to practices and plans that never actually make good on the promissory note of childhood. The 1992 Rio Earth Summit is a notable example. Such …

Critical Challenges: A Conversation On Complicity And Civility In Legal Education, Penelope Andrews, Sharon Hom, Ruthann Robson

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Using Distance Learning To Enhance Cross-Listed Interdisciplinary Law School Courses, Paula E. Berg

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Dominicans In The United States: A Socioeconomic Profile, 2000, Ramona Hernández, Francisco L. Rivera-Batiz

Publications and Research

This study provides a statistical account of the situation of Dominicans living in the United States using the 1990 U.S. Census data.

Bob Lewis’ Encounter With The ‘Great Death:’ Port Jervis’ Entrance Into The ‘United States Of Lyncherdom, Kristopher B. Burrell

Publications and Research

This paper is a local study of a lynching in Port Jervis, New York in 1892. The victim was a black man, Bob Lewis. This study intends to situate Lewis’ lynching in both its historical and cultural contexts. Larger than that, this paper argues that even though southern and northern lynchings, particularly when the victims were African American, resembled one another in several important ways—including higher incidences of mutilation and torture; often becoming a form of white communal entertainment in which white participants often collected and/or sold relics in order to commemorate the event; and the bodies often being left …

First Recipients Of Anthropological Doctorates In The United States, 1891-1930, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

This article seeks to show the origins of the professionalization of anthropology by examining early doctoral dissertations in this field and their authors. The bibliography consists of citations with biographical details of the authors, when known, of doctoral dissertations in anthropology from United States educational institutions up to 1930. One hundred twenty-four citations are given in all, representing 18 institutions. Forty-one of the dissertations were not written for degrees in anthropology. Besides documenting the existence of anthropological work outside recognized graduate programs of anthropology, the bibliography provides a demographic profile of anthropology and shows the distribution of subdiscipline concentrations and …

Mapping Environmental Injustices: Pitfalls And Potential Of Geographic Information Systems In Assessing Environmental Health And Equity., Juliana Maantay

Publications and Research

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have been used increasingly to map instances of environmental injustice, the disproportionate exposure of certain populations to environmental hazards. Some of the technical and analytic difficulties of mapping environmental injustice are outlined in this article, along with suggestions for using GIS to better assess and predict environmental health and equity. I examine 13 GIS-based environmental equity studies conducted within the past decade and use a study of noxious land use locations in the Bronx, New York, to illustrate and evaluate the differences in two common methods of determining exposure extent and the characteristics of proximate populations. …

The State Goes Home: Local Hyper-Vigilance Of Children And The Global Retreat From Social Reproduction, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

In an early scene in The Terminator, the Cyborgian Arnold Schwarzenegger walks into an L.A. gun shop and asks to see the wares. The shopkeeper lays out Uzis, submachine guns, rocket launchers, and other sophisticated means of overkill, nervously understating, "Any one of these will suit you for home defense purposes." The situation is likewise in the growing child protection industry. In keeping with the shopkeeper's sly comment, these businesses feast on an all-pervasive culture of fear, while creating a mockery, alibi, and distraction out of what they are really about - to remake the home as a citadel through …

Historical Fabrications On The Internet: Recognition, Evaluation, And Use In Bibliographic Instruction, John A. Drobnicki, Richard Asaro

Publications and Research

Although the Internet provides access to a wealth of information, there is little, if any, control over the quality of that information. Side-by-side with reliable information, one finds disinformation, misinformation, and hoaxes. The authors of this paper discuss numerous examples of fabricated historical information on the Internet (ranging from denials of the Holocaust to personal vendettas), offer suggestions on how to evaluate websites, and argue that these fabrications can be incorporated into bibliographic instruction classes.

On The Grounds Of Globalization: A Topography For Feminist Political Engagement, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Globalization is nothing new. Global trade has been going on for millennia—though what constitutes the "globe" has expanded dramatically in that time. And trade is nothing if not cultural exchange, the narrow distinctions between the economic and the cultural having long been rendered obsolete. Moreover, our forbears, like us, were great "miscegenators." If here I gloss the racialized and gendered violence often associated with miscegenation, I do so strategically to note that all recourse to purity, indigeneity, or aboriginality—however useful strategically—should be subject to at least as much scrutiny as the easy romance with hybridity (see Mitchell 1997). Globalization has …

Review Of The Book The Handbook Of Central Asia: A Comprehensive Survey Of The New Republics, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book The Handbook of Central Asia: A Comprehensive Survey of the New Republics.

Globalization, Human Rights And Critical Race Feminism: Voices From The Margins, Penelope Andrews

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Monoglossic Policies For A Heteroglossic Culture: Misinterpreted Multilingualism In Modern Galicia, José Del Valle

Publications and Research

This article critically discusses the representations of language that, since the 1980s, have been informing language policy in Galicia. Data from Galicia´s Sociolinguisic Map are re-analyzed and an argument is made that current language policies are grounded in a misinterpretation of how speakers map language on to identity.

They Said We Were Trying To Show Reality -- All I Want To Show Is My Video: The Politics Of Realist Feminist Documentaries, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Review Of The Book Dictionary Of The Holocaust: Biography, Geography, And Terminology, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Dictionary of the Holocaust: Biography, Geography, and Terminology.

Mallorca: Centers For Musical Historical Research, Antoni Pizà, Joan Parets I Serra

Publications and Research

Majorque, la plus grande des îles Baléares, a une riche histoire musicale. Depuis plus de dix ans, le Centre de documentation musicale historique local a entrepris de recueillir, conserver et propager le patrimoine historique et musical des îles Baléares. L'article retrace l'historique de la recherche dans la région et donne un aperçu des collections et des activités du Centre, qui incluent des publications, des colloques réguliers et des rencontres scientifiques.

Mallorca, eine der größten Inseln der Balearen, hat eine reiche Musikgeschichte. Seit zehn Jahren ist das lokale Zentrum für historische Musikdokumentation dabei, das historische und musikalische Erbe der Balearen zu …

Building “A Home Of Our Own:” The Construction Of The Lesbian Herstory Archives, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

This article traces the founding of the Lesbian Herstory Archives in the context of radical archiving and lesbian institution building. It includes an outline of problems presented by "extra-legal" or outlaw material in archival settings. Discussion of the New York Public Library's Becoming Visible exhibit reflects the 1990s growth of mainstream institutional interest in gay, lesbian, and transgender archives, and the complications this interest presents.

Representations Of New York City In Latin Music, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Dominican Studies: Resources And Research Questions, Luis Alvarez-López, Sherrie Baver, Jean Weisman, Ramona Hernández, Nancy López

Publications and Research

This collection of bibliographies, research reports, listings of resources, and discussions of research question, gathers the results of various projects sponsored by the Dominican Studies Institute.

Music, Identity, And Images Of India In The Indo-Caribbean Diaspora, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

Examines the role of one set of fragments in the identities of a diasporic population which is at once unique, and uniquely representative.

Interview: Cindi Katz. Creating Safe Space And The Materiality Of The Margins, Cindi Katz

Publications and Research

Cindi Katz, associate professor and chair of the environmental psychology program at the Graduate School of the City University of New York, visited the University of Kentucky in February of 1996 to deliver the keynote address at the 5 1/2 Annual Geography Graduate Student Conference. In her address, entitled "Power, Space and Terror: Social Reproduction and the Public Environment," Professor Katz discussed how changes jn urban built environments, particularly the privatization of urban public space, negatively affected New York City children. Privatization, she argued, not only serves a 'child hating' mentality prevalent in our society, but fosters, among other things, …

Benchmarking The Finance Function, Frank R. Gatti

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Higher-Order Categories In Brunei Dusun Ethnobotany: The Folk-Classification Of Rainforest Plants, Jay H. Bernstein

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

On Epidemiology And Geographic Information Systems: A Review And Discussion Of Future Directions, K. C. Clarke, S. L. Mclafferty, B. J. Tempalski

Publications and Research

Geographic information systems are powerful automated systems for the capture, storage, retrieval, analysis, and display of spatial data. While the systems have been in development for more than 20 years, recent software has made them substantially easier to use for those outside the field. The systems offer new and expanding opportunities for epidemiology because they allow an informed user to choose between options when geographic distributions are part of the problem. Even when used minimally, these systems allow a spatial perspective on disease. Used to their optimum level, as tools for analysis and decision making, they are indeed a new …

Book Review Of Genealogical Gazetteer Of Galicia, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Book review of Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia.

Puerto Rican Music And Cultural Identity: Creative Appropriation Of Cuban Sources From Danza To Salsa, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.