Digital Commons Network^™

List Of Contributors, Allen G. Wood

Global Business Languages

No abstract provided.

Retaining Engineering Students Through A January Term German Immersion Study Tour, Sigrid Berka

Global Business Languages

Retention of engineering students is a national and international concern, since a globalizing world needs ever more culturally competent and technically adept graduates to fulfill the work force demands of companies operating globally. The data on retention of engineering students agrees that the freshman year is of critical importance; we fi nd that only about 40 to 50% of the students graduate with an engineering degree. The International Engineering Program (IEP) organizes a 10 to 14-day German Study Tour during January break, which is an effective retention tool for students enrolled in The University of Rhode Island’s demanding five-year dual …

Autoethnography And Garcia's Dreaming In Cuban, Samantha L. Mcauliffe

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Authoethnography and Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban" Samantha L. McAuliffe positions Cristina Garcia's novel as a text of self-discovery and cultural reconciliation. McAuliffe examines multilingualism and hybridity in Dreaming in Cuban and postulates that the novel represents what Marie Louise Pratt calls the "contact zone" where cultures meet and clash. As autoethnography, Dreaming in Cuban allows an insider view of what being Cuban American really means. The reader is able to experience the conflict those with a hybrid identity experience through the eyes of one in the midst of that conflict. Further, McAuliffe suggests in her analysis …

Teaching Arabic To Business Students, Amel Mili

Global Business Languages

It has become increasingly more critical for business students to be fluent in foreign languages and knowledgeable of foreign cultures. There is more to teaching a foreign language to a business student than teaching vocabulary and grammar. In order to prepare students to be successful businesspersons in the target geographic area, we must also introduce them to such topics as the local culture, local economic conditions, and local business ethics. In this article, I discuss my experience at Lauder with the Arabic language and culture program, by discussing in turn its requirements, premises, and lessons learned.

Science-Technology Division, Joseph R. Kraus, Sarah K. Oelker, Emily Kasuto, Cynthia M. Cohen

Sci-Tech News

No abstract provided.

The Montclarion, December 01, 2011, The Montclarion

The Montclarion

Student Newspaper of Montclair State University

Atg Interviews Knut Dorn, Katina Strauch

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Publisher Profile: Springer

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Issues In Vendor/Library Relations -- Fotb Tallahassee, Bob Nardini

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Atg Interviews Springer, Tom Gilson, Katina Strauch

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Booklover -- Politics & Religion, Donna Jacobs

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

The Challenge Of Transcultural Competence: Background Reading Of Target Culture Current Events Articles, Norbert Hedderich

Global Business Languages

At the lower and intermediate-levels of language instruction, students do not have sufficient language proficiency to inform themselves about current events in the target language. Knowledge of current events is an important part of cultural competence and should not be absent from instruction because of linguistic restrictions. This article proposes to remedy this problem, by creating out-of-class reading assignments of current events articles from US and international English language news sources. The article provides practical information on selection criteria for articles, suggests news sources, and gives examples of assignments.

International Dateline -- Books Read By Apprentices, Rita Ricketts

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Biz Of Acq -- Serials Departments Aren't What They Used To Be: Providing Public Service To Users From Behind The Scenes, Denise M. Branch, Michelle Flinchbaugh

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

From The Reference Desk, Tom Gilson

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Inanimate Speech From Lovecraft To Žižek, Apple Z. Igrek

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Inanimate Speech from Lovecraft to Žižek" Apple Z. Igrek explores an influential line of reasoning associated with our contemporary loss of the Real. The argument describes how the contingencies and nuances of social life have been reduced to an operational, friction-free, and homogeneous realm of signs. Slavoj Žižek contends that our inherently traumatic relationship with the Other is being foreclosed and replaced by an omnipresent technological screen of virtual communication. The danger of this shift, identified as the "digital break," is that it facilitates an extraordinary form of divine violence which strikes back at the social system …

Comparative Literature In Chinese, Xiaolu Wang, Yan Liu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Comparative Literature in Chinese" Xiaolu Wang and Yan Liu describe the development of comparative poetics in Chinese by sketching major publications and the general institutional situation of the discipline. Wang and Liu suggest that comparative work remains impulsive while at the same time dynamic. Like other fields in the humanities, the study of poetics — comparative or other — in Chinese is no longer traditional in terms of discursive form but copied from the West. Although the scholarly achievements in the field within the past thirty years are considerable, problems remain including the issue of translation of …

Eliot's The Waste Land And Surging Nationalisms, Pouneh Saeedi

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Eliot's The Waste Land and Surging Nationalisms" Pouneh Saeedi analyzes T.S. Eliot's poem in the context of the impact of World War I and the emergence of nationalisms. In the midst of the ruins of both his personal life and Europe, Eliot expresses the loss of a universal understanding delineated in the fragmentation of language and a disassociation of sensibility. In The Waste Land, the West and the East — represented in their respective canonical texts — commingle and cohere to present an image of oneness that goes beyond oppositional binaries and leads the egotistical self …

Book Reviews -- Monographic Musings, Debbie Vaughn

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

How Business Professionals Perceive Intercultural Differences: A Survey, Lan Zhang

Global Business Languages

This article reports the findings of a survey conducted among business professionals who have either worked in China or are US based and have relationships with Chinese companies. The intention is to discover what business culture differences they perceive between the US and China and how they cope with the language and cultural challenges. As a result, Chinese language instructors can then understand business students’ needs better and thus teach more effectively by incorporating the findings into the Chinese business language curricula.

Breathe Pure Chile: Teaching About The Cultural Differences In International Business, Orlando R. Kelm

Global Business Languages

In this article we present a brief case study entitled “Breathe Pure Chile” that illustrates some of the cultural issues that come up in international professional settings. The company exports fruits from Chile and uses new technologies to preserve the foods longer. More importantly, this case offers insights into the interaction between North American and Latin American professionals. The story is based on actual interviews that were conducted with employees of the company in Santiago, Chile; however, the names of the people and the company have been modifi ed. In order to analyze the various cultural issues, the contents of …

Fernández And Cinematic Propaganda In The U.S. And Mexico, Renae L. Mitchell

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Fernández and Cinematic Propaganda in the U.S. and Mexico" Renae L. Mitchell discusses the competing ideologies on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. As one of the foremost filmmakers of the Mexican Golden Age of cinema, Emilio Fernández established what would is recognized as "Mexicanness" by means of Indigenous characters in his films, most apparent in the film María Candelaria. RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) Pictures, as the principal purveyor of US-American propagandist cinema, led Hollywood into the cinematic market of Mexico revealing its intentions by means of the RKO film The Falcon in Mexico. Fernández sought to …

Comparative Literature In Chinese And An Interview With Yue, Hui Zhang, Daiyun Yue

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "Comparative Literature in Chinese and an Interview with Daiyun Yue" Hui Zhang and Daiyun Yue present a review of the discipline of comparative literature based on an interview with Yue (2010). Because Yue's work with comparative literature is intertwined with her personal journey, the interview sheds light on other Chinese scholars and their work who would not be known audiences outside China. The interview also touches on the academic and political reasons why the joint dualisms of "ancient/modern" and "Chinese/foreign" continue to be major structuring principles of the discipline in China, as well as how the development …

The Tartu School And Catalan Scholarship: A Book Review Article Of New Work In Reception And Communication Studie, Christopher Larkosh

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Academic Discourse And Literacy Narratives As "Equipment For Living", Kris Rutten

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Academic Discourse and Narratives of Literacy as 'Equipment for Living'" Kris Rutten discusses practices of academic discourse and argues that students entering higher education have to become part of a specific community of institutional discourse. Rutten claims that narratives of and about literacy — narratives that revolve around issues dealing with language and the acquisition of literacy — "dramatize" the tension of moving from one discourse community to another. By charting situations of "type," fictional literacy narratives can be used by students as "equipment for living" in order to reflect on confrontations and difficulties they experience in …

About The Human Condition In The Works Of Dickens And Marx, Ami E. Stearns, Thomas J. Burns

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article "About the Human Condition in the Works of Dickens and Marx" Ami E. Stearns and Thomas J. Burns contribute to the study of Charles Dickens's Industrial Revolution-era fiction by examining his novels in relation to Karl Marx's social philosophy. Stearns and Burns postulate that Dickens relies on Marxist concepts of class consciousness, sacrifice, revolution, social antitheses, and social injustice to weave his narratives and compare and discuss six of Dickens' novels: A Tale of Two Cities, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations with three works of Marx: Grundrisse, The Communist Manifesto, …

Dante's Linguistic Detail In Shelley's Triumph Of Life, Anita O'Connell

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article "Dante's Linguistic Detail in Shelley's Triumph of Life" Anita O'Connell analyzes Shelley's attention to detail in Dante's poetic style and presents a close textual analysis of the ways Shelley draws on the beauty of Dante's texts. When Dante's Divine Comedy re-emerged into the public sphere in Britain through Henry Cary's 1814 translation, his reputation was as a stern, dark, Medieval poet and readers and writers alike shared a love of the perceived gothicism particularly of The Inferno. Shelley, however, differed from this general view of Dante: despite the grotesque descriptions in his Triumph of Life …

Nuevas Narrativas: Translation Of Family History, Migel A. Delgado

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Family histories are hard to pass on when the native language of one's culture is no longer passed on to the next generation. Growing up between two cultures has created a void that is considerably complex. Nuevas Narrativas: Translation of Family History represents the dynamics involved with deciphering my grandfather's migration story. This investigation within family narratives illustrates the dynamics within reception, translation, and transcription of traditional narratives.

In this installation, I engage the reception of my grandfather's migration story as a way of addressing how foreign languages and historical narratives create displacement through time. The context for this work …

The Metroburb: American Values In Facebook Culture, Heather Marie Carlson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Using critical discourse analysis, fantasy themes were extracted from user profiles and postings to examine American values found in Facebook culture.

Core values found on Facebook worked to create not only socially recognizable identities enacted and communicated through the participants, but also a particular culture to which participants both reflected and contributed in Facebook. Themes and values extracted from findings indicate that Facebook users should be casual, technologically-aware, social, respectful and fair to others, “good little copers,” financially savvy while at the same time valuing higher education, a healthy lifestyle, family and travel.

Because Facebook is an interestingly fluid cultural …

“A Moral Wilderness”: Nathaniel Hawthorne’S The Scarlet Letter, Lehtie Chalise Thomson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter portrays his understanding of Puritan doctrines and culture. He addresses sin and redemption through his primary characters Hester Prynne and the Reverend Mr. Dimmesdale, whose adultery has resulted in the birth of Pearl and Hester’s scarlet A. He demonstrates Hester’s refusal to publically accept her sin as such. He also outlines the physical demise and spiritual indecision of the minister as Dimmesdale struggles to live two opposing lives. I call attention to how Hawthorne takes his knowledge of the New England Puritans and alters the historical context to emphasize his Romantic views of sin …