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Moral Friction, Moral Phenomenology, And The Improviser, Benjamin Scott Young

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation offers a phenomenology of that mode of self-interpretation in which it becomes possible for an interpreter to intentionally participate in the production of moral norms to which the interpreter himself or herself feels bound. Part One draws on Richard Rorty's notion of the "ironist" in order to thematize the phenomenon I call "moral friction"; a condition in which an interpreter becomes explicitly aware of the historical and cultural contingencies of their own moral vocabularies, practices, and concerns and as a result find themselves incapable of feeling the normative weight implicit in these. Part Two draws on Heidegger's existential …

Good Men Grow Corn: Embodied Ecological Heritage And Health In A Belizean Mopan Community, Kristina Linda Baines

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent developments in land rights and land use in the Toledo district, Belize has generated anthropological and activist interest surrounding traditional ecological knowledge and practice, and the role of heritage in communities. This study explores the connection between ecological knowledge and practices, and the concurrent construction of heritage, and community health and wellness, broadly defined. Developing and using the concept of "embodied ecological heritage," this dissertation takes a phenomenological approach to understanding the convergence of ecological heritage and health in multiple realms of everyday life, arguing that lived experience of participating in "traditional" practices is fundamentally connected to wellness in …

Perceptions Of Hispanic Female Esl Students Toward First-Year College Writing Courses: A Phenomenological Examination Of Cultural Influences, Barbara B. Booker

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The role of culture as a phenomenon guided this qualitative study, which examined the influence of diverse Hispanic cultures on the attitudes and perceptions towards college writing courses of female Hispanic students who are non-native speakers of English. With the increasing number of Hispanic immigrants coming to the U.S., the minority student population at our nation's colleges and universities has also risen. Community colleges have become the means through which many of these Hispanic immigrants obtain a college education.

The eight women who participated in this study self-identified as Hispanic. All were first generation college students who had been born …

Strategizing Relationships 2.0: An Analysis Of International Companies' Use Of Social Media, Jessica Marie Brightman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Because of technological advances and the blurring of boundaries, the world is becoming a global community. Global communications have made it essential for multinational corporations to develop and maintain a consistent worldwide identity and brand image. It is no longer possible to classify people into simple and stable segments of customers; the world is evolving and so is the population. The purpose of this research is to bridge the gap between the academic and professional world of international public relations by expanding the stream of literature and incorporating a global aspect. Within the last few years, social media has seen …

Talking About Talk: The Problem Of Communication As An Object Of Study In Public Participation Research, Lauren Leigh Cutlip

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

When citizens participate in risk assessment and decision-making for environmental and other issues that affect members of the public, more robust decisions may be made. Public participation in policy decisions is not only more democratic, but it also enables members of the public to contribute valuable expertise to the decision-making process. However, the development of an effective forum for such participatory projects has been difficult. Participation mechanisms that foster dialogue and interactive exchange between participants have been regarded as the most beneficial, but the practical application of these mechanisms has been observed to be problematic. The goal of this study …

Painting Puertorriqueñidad: The Jíbaro As A Symbol Of Creole Nationalism In Puerto Rican Art Before And After 1898, Jeffrey L. Boe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the three decades surrounding the Spanish-American war (1880-1910), three prominent Puerto Rican artists, Francisco Oller (1833-1917), Manuel E. Jordan (1853-1919), and Ramón Frade (1875-1954) created a group of paintings depicting "el jíbaro," the rural Puerto Rican farm worker, in a way that can be appropriately labeled "nationalistic." Using a set of motifs involving clothes, customs, domestic architecture and agricultural practices unique to rural Puerto Rico, they contributed to the imagination of a communal identity for creoles at the turn of the century. ("Creole" here refers to individuals of Spanish heritage, born on the island of Puerto Rico.) …

The Relationship Between The Social Construction Of Race And The Black/White Test Score Gap In, Toriano M. Dempsey

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research is an investigation into the relationship between the resegregation of American

public schools and the social creation of race. This research is based on the popular notion that

American public schools are failing to produce students capable of competing in today's global society.

The proof most often used to assert the failure of American public schools is the Black/White Test Score

Gap. For the purposes of this research the Black/White Test Score Gap is defined as the gap between

the scores on academic standardized tests between Black public school students and White public school

students regardless of …

Community As Metaphor: Dialectical Tensions Of A Racially Diverse Organization, Joseph Jacob Jenkins

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, a sense of community has declined throughout the United States. Common Point Community Church has responded to this trend by prioritizing "community" as an organizational metaphor. The present study explores how this metaphor is co-constructed through the communication practices of current organizational leaders and members. I begin this process, first, by positioning the study within existing literature on institutional theory, institutional legitimacy, community, community of practice, social construction of race, sensemaking, organizational metaphor, tension-centered approach, and dialectic theory. Building upon more than three years of ethnographic field work, I then outline the study's context and methodology. Next, …

Teachers' Narratives Of Experience With Social Class, Natalie Elizabeth Keefer

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Equality of educational opportunity has been a long elusive goal of public education in the United States. This narrative, phenomenological study conducted inquiry into how five teachers in Tampa, Florida construct meaning about social class and academic achievement based on their life experiences as members of a class-based society. Data produced descriptive, narrative stories that contextualize how meaning is constructed about social class based on participants' life experiences. This line of inquiry provides relevant insight into teachers' understandings of social class which may influence the provision of equal educational opportunities to all students. The following study includes a comprehensive analysis …

Semantic Feature Distinctiveness And Frequency, Katherine Marie Lamb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Lexical access is the process in which basic components of meaning in language, the lexical entries (words) are activated. This activation is based on the organization and representational structure of the lexical entries. Semantic features of words, which are the prominent semantic characteristics of a word concept, provide important information because they mediate semantic access to words. An experiment was conducted to examine the importance of semantic feature distinctiveness and feature frequency in accessing the lexical representations of young and older adults in an off-line task using features of animals. The McRae, Cree, Seidenberg, and McNorgan (2005) feature norm corpus …

The Rhetoric Of Evidence In Recent Documentary Film And Video, Steven W. Schoen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Documentary is a genre of film that portrays "real" events using depictions that connote the objectivity and facticity implied by the processes of photorealism. Many contemporary documentary theorists and critics observe a constitutive problem in this ethos: despite the apparent constructions and agendas of documentary filmmaking, the framing and assumption of documentary as a window on the world tend to naturalize its own constructions as "real." Critics who engage documentary trace the multitude of ways this problem plays out in particular films. These projects yield many important insights, but they most often approach documentary as a form of inherently deficient …

Improvisational Music Performance: On-Stage Communication Of Power Relationships, David A. Steinweg

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project explores how musical improvisational processes come into being through interacting discursive power relationships that are embodied and enacted through performance. By utilizing the concepts of framing and performativity I am able to show how discursive power constitutes the performance of improvisational music. To exemplify this theory, the project presents a case study examining a Grateful Dead cover band named Uncle John's Band that performs at Skipper's Smokehouse in Tampa, FL. Using an ethnographic methodology, the project articulates the dominant discursive power relationships that constitute Uncle John's Band's improvisational performances. The dominant discursive power relationships revolve around the lived …

A Phenomenological Study Of Teaching Endangered Languages Online: Perspectives From Nahua And Mayan Educators., Dustin De Felice

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Language and culture teaching has always been a complex and challenging task. For many educators, their teaching experiences are rooted in their earlier preparation, their classroom situations and their curriculum. In this study, indigenous educators recount their lived experiences with teaching their language and culture at a distance. These educators belong to either Nahua or Mayan speech communities where endangered languages are maintained. Using a transcendental phenomenological approach, my participants described and explained their perspectives and experiences with teaching, studying, and integrating technology. I focused the interviews, the reflective writing tasks and their artifact sharing on their experiences in an …

Figurative Language In The Immigration Debate: Comparing Early 20th Century And Current U.S. Debate With The Contemporary European Debate, Ensieh Biria

Dissertations and Theses

This study analyzes newspaper coverage of immigration reform in mainstream newspapers prior to, and following the debate in June 2007. The newspaper text is analyzed using metaphor interpretation supported by content analysis. The quantitative result categorizes the identified metaphors in three distinct metaphor categories about: immigrants and immigration, immigration policy and enforcement, and metaphors about the debate and immigration issue itself. The relative distribution of metaphors among categories is provided. Using an open coding process, emergent metaphor categories are identified. The qualitative findings describe metaphors and schemas that were potentially activated by particular metaphorical phrases in this context. Lastly, this …

The Role Of Compliment Topics In Compliment Response, Hiroko Katsuta

Dissertations and Theses

This study examines the role of compliment topic by analyzing compliment responses by Japanese and American college students. Compliment responses can be seen as solutions for maintaining a balance between (1) a preference to avoid self-praise and (2) a preference to accept or agree with the compliment (Pomerantz 1978). Building on studies showing that response strategies can be influenced by compliment content and context, the study analyzed responses to compliments on ability, achievement, belongings, appearance, and personal characteristics by determining the subjects' choice of response strategy--categorized as acceptance, avoidance, or rejection--for each compliment topic. Compliment responses were elicited in a …

Unfinished Business: A Discussion Of Remedies For Victims Of Involuntary Dismissal Under Don't Ask, Don't Tell And Its Predecessor, Toward A True Reconciliation, Robert I. Correales

Scholarly Works

By examining another dark chapter in American history-the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II-this Article makes a moral and legal case for a more complete resolution of harms to victims of anti-gay military discrimination. The successful reparations campaign waged by Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II has provided both inspiration and a helpful blueprint for reparation movements worldwide. This article seeks to show that by observing the parallels between these two dark periods, it is clear that DADT's historical chapter cannot be closed until reparations are paid to those who were victimized by the policies …

Hyphens For Disambiguating Phrases: Effectiveness For Young And Older Adults, Inge Anema, Loraine Obler

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether hyphens that disambiguate phrasing in ambiguous sentences influence reading rate and reading comprehension for younger and older adults. Moreover, as working memory (WM) has been implicated in age-related changes in sentence comprehension for both auditory and written materials, we asked if it contributed to comprehension of our sentences with hyphenated and non-hyphenated ambiguous noun phrases (NPs), predicting that the hyphens would reduce WM load. Twenty younger (M = 24 years) and 20 older (M = 73 years) adults read sentences with either ambiguous or non-ambiguous NPs that were either hyphenated or …

La Disputada Autoridad De Las Academias: Debate Lingüístico Ideológico En Torno A La Ortografía De 2010, José Del Valle, Laura Villa

Publications and Research

This article analyzes the linguistic polemics surrounding the publication of the new orthography of Spanish by the Association of Academies of the Spanish language.

History, Interactive Technology And Pedagogy: Past Successes And Future Directions, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

Based on a keynote presentation at the 2012 Canadian Historical Association conference, this paper surveys the state of digital technology and its impact on academic publication and teaching in the contemporary university. Focusing on the dramatic rise of the Digital Humanities in the last few years, the paper examines alternative forms of peer review, academic scholarship and publication, and classroom teaching as they have been reshaped by the adoption of a variety of digital technologies and formats, including open-access, online peer reviewing, use of data- bases and visualization techniques in humanities work, online journal publication, and the use of blogs …

Topic Modeling And Figurative Language, Lisa M. Rhody

Publications and Research

Located at the center of Jorie Graham’s collection The End of Beauty, “Self Portrait as Hurray and Delay” crafts a portrait of the artist, poised at a precarious moment in which thought begins to take shape. Like Penelope, Graham entertains the illusion, if only momentarily, of a choice between bringing a creative impulse into form or allowing it to come undone. A weaver of language, Graham subtly, deftly, but unsuccessfully attempts to delay the inevitable moment in poetic creation in which complexity of thought adopts form through language, and so realized is also reduced. In The End of Beauty, the …

Notices

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

No abstract provided.

Artification And The Aesthetic Regime Of Art, Aleš Erjavec

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The author discusses “artification” and attempts to ascertain whether some common features can be found between artification and Jacques Rancière’s aesthetics, especially his notion of the “aesthetic regime of art.” The author argues that Rancière’s project of “art become life” can be employed as a common denominator of both theoretical frameworks, that of artification and that of the aesthetic regime of art. Nonetheless, the art to which Rancière’s notion primarily applies is different from art in the traditional sense, which seems to form the empirical basis of the notion of artification.

School-University Collaboration: Perspectives On A Hybrid Space For Literacy Learning, Nancy A. Place, Antony T. Smith

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

This paper examines the ongoing collaboration between a teacher certification literacy course and a local elementary school. Teacher candidates, elementary students, classroom teachers, and university instructors all collaborate to implement a literacy methods course, creating a hybrid space for learning in which university and school personnel work together to the benefit of all participants. The background of this collaboration is described, and literacy learning is explored from the perspective of each participant group. Themes from these perspectives suggest that structured interactions between teacher candidates and elementary students help bridge the gap between literacy concepts and classroom practice, and that participating …

Latinos In Action: Cultivating Academics, Access, Equity, And Future Bilingual Educators, Maria Timmons Flores, Marilyn Chu, Michael Sampson

Northwest Journal of Teacher Education

Developing bilingual teachers is critical in closing the achievement gap experienced by bilingual and Latino children. This qualitative case study investigated the benefits of an academically grounded cross-age tutoring program designed to support low-income, bilingual high school students to graduate, pursue higher education, and explore education as a possible career. Data sources included observations, interviews, program artifacts, and quantitative academic indicators. Data were analyzed using grounded theory and narrative analysis. Theoretically framed as social design experiment (Gutierrez & Vossoughi, 2010), the study employs cultural historical perspectives and qualitative research to define underlying principles of transformative practice. Findings demonstrate shifts in …

The Asian And Pacific Islander Community In Multnomah County: An Unsettling Profile, Ann Curry-Stevens, Coalition Of Communities Of Color

School of Social Work Faculty Publications and Presentations

This report builds on the Communities of Color in Multnomah County: An Unsettling Profile publication in 2010, that provided a comprehensive and comparative study of the inequities facing communities of color, immigrants and refugees. The findings, backed up by accurate and extensive data, are indeed unsettling, highlighting the persistent and in some cases growing disparities facing our communities. We see this as a wake-up call for public officials and policy-makers, and an opportunity for increased partnership and collective action for the advancement of racial equity.

One key recommendation in this report is to improve standards that ensure the disaggregation of …

Experimenting With The Future: Born Magazine, Multimedia, And The French Avant-Garde, Anmarie Trimble, Jennifer Grotz

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Born is an experimental online magazine that brings together writers and "new media" designers and artists, who have collaborated to create multimedia interpretations of poetry (and more rarely, short prose). As editors of one of the earliest, enduring literary publications on the Web, we often receive invitations to share our “vision” of Web poetics, literary multimedia, et cetera. This presents a problem—Born evolved without consciously intending to even focus on poetry (only our current incarnation), but rather with an intent to be a creative, collaborative community. As such our work and vision are shaped as much by the interests of …

"... And I'D Look At My Hands And Think Of Lady Macbeth ...", Yrjänä Levanto

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

After resigning from the service of Sotheby's Auction House, Bruce Chatwin changed his views on art, the art world, and art history. He developed an approach that differed from established art-historical writing; he began to contextualize differently. He saw and understood the use of artistic means more widely than in traditional art-historical writing. From Chatwin's viewpoint, one possibility was to "smuggle" new material into the existing system. In this study, I take as my material Bruce Chatwin's enthusiasm and loyalty to Andre Malraux and his ideas about Le Musee Imaginaire. I also make use of Chatwin's interest in Heinrich Wolfflin's …

From Environmental Aesthetics To Narratives Of Change, Nathalie Blanc

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Environmental aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that originated in the English-speaking world and is developing in France. It aims to take a new look at how relationships with the environment are constructed. Often addressed from a landscaping, technical or scientific angle, such relationships have remained largely unaddressed from a cultural perspective, i.e., one that includes a series of practices and values that represent a human group. In this article, I will address environmental aesthetics and how they point up tensions between fixed and static visual representations of the environment in the future and representations that can accommodate ordinary encounters, …

Fragments In Libeskind And Wittgenstein, Rossen Ventzislavov

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

My paper explores the similar role that fragments play in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy and in Libeskind’s architecture. The fragment is an infraction of traditional linear approaches to architecture and philosophy and thus affords an alternative critical glimpse into the fabric of each respective field. The fact that some philosophy and architecture use this device and its critical stance bodes well not only for the futures of the two disciplines but also for the embattled connection between them. In my paper I try to show that the break with linearity Wittgenstein and Libeskind engage in effectively replaces the ivory towers of …

The Problem Of Cinematic Imagination, Rafe Mcgregor

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: to identify the problem of cinematic imagination, and then to propose a satisfactory solution. In part one I analyze the respective claims of Dominic McIver Lopes and Roger Scruton, both of whom question the scope of imagination in film, when compared to other art forms, on the basis of its perceptual character. In order to address these concerns I develop a hybrid of Gregory Currie’s model of cinematic imagination and Kendall Walton’s theory of make-believe in section two. Section three offers a reply to Lopes and Scruton, examining the problem in terms of …