Digital Commons Network^™

Agent-Based Modelling Of The Relationships Among Kinship, Residence, And Exchange, James R. Allison

Faculty Publications

In the North American Southwest, archaeological research has documented ceramic exchange networks in which spatially proximate households in consumer communities have greatly varying amounts of imported pottery. This paper uses agent-based modelling to gain insight into the processes responsible for these distributions. The agent-based model used here tracks kinship ties among agents representing individuals who give birth, marry, co-reside with spouses, and exchange things in a virtual landscape filled with small settlements of up to a few hundred individuals. Exchange of goods in the model flows through the kinship networks. The results suggest that the differential distribution of goods among …

How Religion Influences Coping With Stress And Challenges In Families, Michael A. Goodman, Antonious Skipper, David C. Dollahite, Loren D. Marks, Emily Layton

Faculty Publications

One key finding of our American Families of Faith research project is that (instead of being defeated by challenges) strong families find ways to effectively cope with and grow closer through stressful situations. Interestingly, six decades ago, Jeff Hill’s uncle, family sociologist Reuben Hill, began to conceptually and empirically examine why some families succumb to crisis as a result of a stressful situation, while other families remain resilient. While stress can lead to crisis, crisis can also lead to familial resilience and the ability of the family to better cope with future stressors. Different families obviously have different strengths and …

The Influence Of Religious Beliefs In Marriage, Loren D. Marks, David C. Dollahite, Michael A. Goodman

Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we examine the connection between religious beliefs and marriage more deeply. Namely, we will explore, uncover, and convey “insider’s insights” that will be valuable to many readers, particularly to college- aged emerging adults, most of whom will marry one day. Our hope is that these previews into marriage will better inform and prepare emerging adults for success.

The American Families of Faith project includes 200 wives and 200 husbands from marriages or remarriages with an average duration of a little over 20 years. To frame these facts differently, our sample draws on more than eight millennia of …

New Media Forms And The Strange Loop Of Subjectivity In Borges’S “El Milagro Secreto”, David Laraway

Faculty Publications

The scene is familiar to every reader of Borges. The protagonist lies in a darkened cell, awaiting the moment of his execution. His mind too has become a prison; a frustrated writer, he circles endlessly over the possibility of not so much physical escape as artistic redemption while he takes stock of a life unremarkably lived. Then, not one but two miracles occur. The first is the sudden, unanticipated revelation of a project of the imagination that would somehow redeem him; the second, his improbable completion of that task, the syntax of his work curiously mirroring his own life in …