Digital Commons Network^™

Narrative Fortresses: Crisis Narratives And Conflict In The Conservation Of Mount Gorongosa, Mozambique, Christy Schuetze

Sociology & Anthropology Faculty Works

A single narrative about the Gorongosa Restoration Project (GRP) in Mozambique circulates widely in the popular media. This story characterises the project as an innovative intervention into an ecological crisis situation. The narrative hails the project's aim to use profits from tourism to address the goals of both human development and conservation of biodiversity, and portrays the park project as widely embraced by long-term residents. This representation helps the project attract broad acclaim, donor funding, and socially conscious visitors, yet it obscures the early emergence of unified opposition to the project's interventions among long-term residents of Gorongosa Mountain. This article …

The Case Of The Disappearing E-Book: Academic Libraries And Subscription Packages, Helen Georgas

Publications and Research

One of the standard models for e-book licensing in academic libraries is the subscription package. This study is a one-year analysis of "disappeared" titles from ebrary's Academic Complete™ collection. During 2013, 3462 titles were deleted. Deleted titles were mainly recent publications (published within the last ten years), with a high number of deletions within the broad subject areas of the social sciences (H), language and literature (P), and history (C, D, E, F). Deleted titles were evenly divided between monographs published by popular presses, and monographs published by scholarly or university presses. It is recommended that deleted titles be closely …

Postponing Heaven: The Three Nephites, The Bodhisattva, And The Mahdi, Jad Hatem

Maxwell Institute Publications

Christianity, like other world religions, surprisingly acknowledges the existence of a plurality of human messiahs. In this comparative work, philosopher Jad Hatem examines Mormonism’s Three Nephites, Buddhism’s Bodhisattva, and Islam’s Mahdi—distinctive messianic figures who postpone Heaven, sacrificially prolonging their lives for the benefit of humankind.

Originally published in French, this translation includes two additional papers written by Jad Hatem dealing with aspects of Latter-day Saint belief and a new interview between Hatem and Latter-day Saint philosopher James E. Faulconer.

Michigan Academician, Volume 42, Issue 2

Michigan Academician

No abstract provided.

Michigan Academician, Volume 42, Issue 3

Michigan Academician

No abstract provided.

Grand Valley Magazine, Vol. 14, No. 3 Winter 2015, Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley Magazine

Grand Valley Magazine is a quarterly publication about Grand Valley State University produced by University Communications since 2001.

The Alignment Of Law And Norms: Of Mirrors, Bulwarks, And Pressure Valves, Mark A. Edwards

Faculty Scholarship

Why does law mirror norms sometimes, but other times not? This article examines two types of intervening factors that sometimes cause a persistent misalignment between law and norms: pressure valves and bulwarks.

Pressure valves are mechanisms that relieve the pressure placed on the law to change despite a gap with social norms. Pressure valves are found in two distinct social phenomena.

First, pressure on law to change to reflect social norms is relieved when law is not enforced against behavior that is illegal, but socially acceptable. Formally deviant acts that are socially acceptable often do not generate an enforcement response. …

“A Give And A Take”: Lived Experiences In A Real Sharing Economy, Lauren F. Phipps

Pitzer Senior Theses

This thesis contrasts a “real” sharing economy with the commonly held understanding of this new mode of exchange. By examining the lived experiences within a successful example of sharing, we can see its true value and acknowledge where other businesses fall short. Based on in-depth interviews with users of freecycle.org, this thesis illustrates the importance of motivation within a real sharing economy, highlighting the existence of generalized reciprocity, the value of community, and altruism between members of this gifting platform.

Making History: How Art Museums In The French Revolution Crafted A National Identity, 1789-1799, Anna E. Sido

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper compares two art museums, both created during the French Revolution, that fostered national unity by promoting a cultural identity. By analyzing the use of preexisting architecture from the ancien régime, innovative displays of art and redefinitions of the museum visitor as an Enlightened citizen, this thesis explores the application of eighteenth-century philosophy to the formation of two museums. The first is the Musée Central des Arts in the Louvre and the second is the Musée des Monuments Français, both housed in buildings taken over by the Revolutionary government and present the seized property of the royal family and …

African Cowboys On The Argentine Pampas: Their Disappearance From The Historical Record, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Dreaming Of Dry Land: Environmental Transformation In Colonial Mexico City, Andrew Sluyter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

African Fire Cultures, Cattle Ranching, And Colonial Landscape Transformations In The Neotropics, Andrew Sluyter, Chris Duvall

Faculty Publications

Fire regimes emerge partly from human activities that reflect cultural-ecological knowledge of the relationships among fire, vegetation, grazing, climate, and other variables, as well as social relations. More knowledge of such “fire cultures,” past and present, therefore remains necessary to better understand the causes and persistent consequences of landscape burning. In the neotropics, people have used fire for centuries to manage livestock pastures. Conventional wisdom has long posited that such practices derived solely from antecedent European and indigenous, Native American fire cultures. Analysis of accounts of rangeland burning from throughout the neotropics during colonial times, however, demonstrates that ranchers incorporated …

Bhabha's Hybridity And Kenyan Development: A Close Look At Banking, Land And Health, Hannah F. Tuttle, Hannah Tuttle

Honors Theses

What happens when two distinct cultures come into contact? During colonialism, this resulted in the practice of "othering," or the separation of colonial identity, portrayed as positive, modern and good, from colonized identity, illustrated as backward, barbaric and sinful. In this paper, I discuss the ways that Homi K. Bhabha's concept of "hybridity," or the ways that the intersection of these two spheres caused a third "hybrid" culture to arise, manifests in contemporary development practice. Based on a month of field research in Kisumu, Kenya this past January, I discuss the ways that these "hybrids" have formed at the intersection …

School Gardens: Cultivating A Child’S Nutritional Habits, Environmental Knowledge, And Sustainability Practices, Jeffrey Meltzer

Honors Theses

School gardens have existed since the late nineteenth century and today are becoming increasingly popular in many parts of the world, including where I studied in Maine and Australia (AUS). Multiple organizations support school gardens in Maine, including the Maine School Garden Network, which has over 125 registered school gardens. In AUS, the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation primarily supports the school garden movement and has over 800 registered school gardens. While many researchers have studied school gardens, few have compared two countries, focused on environmental sustainability, or investigated Maine in particular. This thesis combines information from literature reviews, and …

Queering The Production Of Sexual Knowledge: Narrative Strategies, Gender Politics And The Promise Of Feminist Focus Groups, Madeline J. Hunsicker

Honors Theses

Dominant public discourses structure our interpretations of sexual acts in decidedly gendered ways, shaping our understandings of sexual experiences and embodiment. As a result, current understandings of term such as “virginity” evoke cultural standards of womanhood, whiteness, monogamy, and tradition that both reflect and reinforce contemporary society’s hetero-patriarchal relations of power. The narratives available for girls and women to make sense of the first sexual experiences are policed by dominant sexual discourses that privilege male pleasure (Kozma, 56-59), which can limit the narratives of actual sexual experiences and subjugate gynogentiric discourses of sexual knowing (Medley-Rath 26). In the absence of …

A Constellation Of Caring: The Dynamic And Fluctuating Nature Of Pediatric Cancer Care, Anne Friedrich

Honors Theses

This honors thesis explores the fluctuating and dynamic nature of pediatric cancer care. I discuss the ways in which pediatric medical providers make meaningful interactions both for themselves and for their patients by enacting a caring liminality that allows them to fight disease while also creating a more personal, relational, and social moment of care. Providers care and work in shifting landscapes of care, what I call carescapes. The carescapes of the built environment, of value, and of physical movement all make the provider’s liminality visible. Ultimately, I argue that care is a way of being in the world, …

Deception, Degeneration, And The Delegation Of Duty: Contracting Safety Obligations Between The Ncaa, Member Institutions, And Student-Athletes, Whitney Johnson

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Nurturing Environmental Literacy At Colby College: Higher Education And The Environmental Crisis, Molly Nash

Honors Theses

The environmental crisis will affect all people, career paths, and academic disciplines. Acknowledging this, does higher education have an obligation to educate all students for environmental literacy (EL)? This study reviews literature on how to effectively assess and implement EL initiatives and highlights how other colleges successfully nurture EL in all students. This study also uses quantitative and qualitative survey measures to understand student levels of EL at Colby College and to highlight specific programming or curriculum that leads to high EL levels in students. Findings include significantly different EL scores between environmental studies student respondents and respondents in all …

Collaboration Portal For Researchers At Eastern Illinois University, Fatemeh Khastkhodaardekani

Masters Theses

This thesis addresses a need for an online collaboration environment for the researchers at Eastern Illinois University (EIU). As the solution, it provides a portal for researchers (students and faculties) who wish to explore and collaborate on projects based on ideas from those who may not have the necessary skills. This is considered to help developing projects based on the ideas as well as making teams, and teach different groups of people different perspectives. Therefore, it offers a learning environment. I started off by examining existing tools and methodologies to satisfy this purpose. As the result, the deliverable project is …

Troubled, Solomohn Nallshi Ennis-Klyczek

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Successful Urban Design Principles For The Redevelopment Of The Historic Seafronts In The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia, Along The North Red Sea , Case Study: Yanbu Al-Bahr’S Historic Seafront, Naif F. Alanazi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis highlights the role of urban planners in the revitalization of historic

seafronts as creative and attractive places for people and a key factor in the

regeneration of the urban economy in the historic seafront areas. The Saudi Arabia

historic seafront areas along the North Red Sea have been neglected and are suffering

because of slow development and changes to industrial uses. This thesis will focus on

the urban design principles that make historic seafronts more attractive and

successful, and will use a case study approach of several American waterfront cities

such as Baltimore, Maryland; San Francisco, California; and …

Expressionism And Ethnography: Max Pechstein In Nidden And Palau, Roland M. Coffey

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis offers a new way to conceptualize Hermann Max Pechstein’s “primitivism” as a kind of ethnographic “primitivism.” By creating a constellation that connects Pechstein’s Nidden and Palau-based projects, Paul Gauguin’s “primitivist” aesthetic, and the research produced by German ethnographers, I argue that the “documentary” nature of Pechstein’s work paradoxically merges the “scientific” aspects of ethnography with his, and more generally, other Expressionists’ interest in the “primitive.” In addition, the following work demonstrates that the purportedly “scientific” representations and visual accounts of South Seas natives that ethnographers like Otto Finsch produced in the late 1800s and early 1900s heavily and …

Introduction, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Books and Chapters

The Chosen People, John Allegro’s attempt to uncover the historical sources for the world’s enduring anti-Semitism, bears the marks of his wish to appeal to two disparate readerships. Allegro’s fluent command of the relevant primary literature is more than sufficient reason for his arguments to be taken seriously. He knows whereof he speaks. He spins the details, however, into a story more akin to a gripping potboiler of palace intrigue and political machination than to a dry recitation of long-forgotten events. Relying upon in-text citations, Allegro was scolded by reviewers for eschewing the fully footnoted scholarly apparatus usually found …

Sankofa Art Education: A Cultural Basis For Ghanaian Art Education, Esi Sam Annan

Theses and Dissertations

This study is a curriculum research project that focuses on teaching the traditional arts of Ghana and enduring artistic ideas to Ghanaian basic school students. It has been designed based on data from a survey conducted with experts in Ghana arts history and on the traditional arts of Ghana. The curriculum covers the major arts practiced by the traditional artists. It also recognizes some contemporary Ghanaian artists and their artworks.

This study offers insights into Ghanaian basic school art teachers’ philosophies and experience with their traditional arts. Through analysis of the findings, the major themes that emerged were changes in …

Boston Marathon Bombing And Experiences Of Solidarity: The Race To Understanding, Caitlin M. Price

Theses and Dissertations

Near the Boston Marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013, an innocent looking backpack disguising a pressure-cooker bomb full of shrapnel detonated. Seconds later, another explosion happened amidst crowds of marathon spectators. Despite being one of the worst attacks on United States soil, an outpouring of positive and pro-social behavior occurred. Communities come together after disasters. Solidarity was felt between victims, first responders, and the community but with varying experiences. Through a content analysis of 12 oral histories collected by the WBUR Our Marathon Collection, three distinct kinds of solidarity experiences were uncovered: visceral, care-work, and virtual. This case study …

La Voz January 2015, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

In this issue:

• Mead Lecture: Jossiana Arroyo-Martinez
• Rabbi Marshall T. Meyer
• El Instituto Internship Placement
• Blood Rising: Art and Social Justice

Biological Evolution In Canadian Science Curricula, Anila Ashgar, Sarah Bean, Wendi O'Neill, Brian Alters

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"The social controversy around biological evolution and creationism continues to persist throughout North America (Alters and Nelson 2002; Berkman and Plutzer 2011; Moore and Cotner 2009; Wiles and Alters 2011; Winslow and others 2011; Rissler and others 2014). This fierce debate has been quite visible in the United States, but seems to be relatively muted in Canada, which may lead many to believe that the dispute does not exist north of the border. While this issue has been researched and documented thoroughly in the US, relatively little is known about its dynamics in Canada, despite the powerful presence of such …

South Dakota State University Graduate Catalog 2015-2016, South Dakota State University

South Dakota State University Catalogs and Bulletins: 1935 to present

No abstract provided.

To The Contrary, Beth Daniell

The Journal of the Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning

Author of one of the most important volumes on literacy and spiritual practice finds that four key insights have guided her work, all of them consonant with AEPL members’ practices.

The Honors Beacon, Issue 09, Winter 2015, Honors Program At Minnesota State University, Mankato

Honors Beacon

Winter 2015 newsletter of the Honors Program at Minnesota State University, Mankato