Digital Commons Network^™

Tractor Mac: Tune-Up, Beverly Jones

Children's Book and Media Review

Take a trip to the farm with Tractor Mac! In this installment of the beloved series, Mac is not feeling well and he must go visit the tractor doctor. Mac is worried, but his animal friends send him well wishes and positivity for a quick fix and recovery. Mac needs some new parts and a tune-up, and soon he is better than new and ready to get back to work at Stony Meadow Farm. Mac is delighted to leave Dr. Lou behind and rejoin his friends and Farmer Bill on the farm.

The Tin Forest, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

An old man dreams of living in a beautiful green forest that is full of living plants and creatures, but the reality around him is trash. Each day he burns garbage, sorts trash, and buries a bit; but the mountain of waste is too high. One day while viewing a piece of trash he gets an idea--why not build a forest from the trash? Each day a builds a bit, and then a bit more. Soon he has tin trees and tin birds and tin cats, an entire forest of tin. But it is quiet. It is not quite the …

The Midnight War Of Mateo Martinez, Jazmin Gomez

Children's Book and Media Review

Mateo Martinez doesn’t believe it at first. How could two skunks have stolen his old tricycle from the driveway in the middle of the night? When he realizes that it really did happen, and it wasn’t just a dream, Mateo is determined to get his precious trike back. Along with his best friend and little sister, Mateo plans a sneak attack on the skunks to get the tricycle back. They end up forming an alliance with the animals to wage war against a gang of raccoons. Together, the group discovers the strength in friendship, loyalty, and working with others.

Real Cowboys, Maryn Wheeler

Children's Book and Media Review

Real cowboys are tough and strong, but they are also gentle and quiet. This picture book goes beyond the cowboy stereotypes to highlight the real life of a cattle drive. Many qualities are needed for a good cowboy. They are thoughtful, helpful, peaceful listeners and patient caretakers of animals and the earth. They come from many backgrounds and miss their families left behind. Cowboys work together and dream of bigger things beyond the horizon.

Possum And The Summer Storm, Robyn Lee

Children's Book and Media Review

Possum’s family watches as their home washes away in a rainstorm, leaving them with nowhere to live. A friendly neighbor notices their situation and volunteers to help rebuild the Possum family home, prompting a community effort. Each forest animal helps build the kind of home they are used to, until eventually the Possum home is roomy enough for everyone to take shelter when the next storm hits.

Little Helpers: Animals On The Job, Hannah Webb

Children's Book and Media Review

There are helpers all around us, sometimes taking the form of teachers and parents. Sometimes, a helper could be a trusted friend you look up to. But sometimes, rather than looking up, you’ve got to look down to spot a little helper! This book gives children a look into the world of service and therapy animals. The book illustrates and explains some common and some unexpected animals that help their owners with a variety of things, ranging from shyness to low blood pressure to blindness. This picture book tells readers about the importance of animal helpers in our world and …

If Wendell Had A Walrus, Sydnee Burr

Children's Book and Media Review

Dreaming of getting a pet, Wendell sets his sights on a walrus. He just knows if he could find a walrus, it will make the best pet! Finding a walrus proves to be trickier than he imagines. The pet store doesn't sell them. Wendell decides the only thing to do is to write his future pet walrus a letter, throw it into the sea in a bottle, and wait. While sitting on a rock and waiting for his new best friend to swim to shore, Wendell meets another boy who has the same idea, but for a pet whale. They …

Hoot & Olive: Brave Enough For Two, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

Friends can be brave for each other. Olive's stuffed owl wants to try some adventurous new things, like flying with balloons and climbing trees. These things make Olive nervous, but Hoot assures her that he is brave enough for both of them. Then when owl needs some encouragement, Olive tells him that she will be brave enough for two this time.

Heartwood Hotel #1: A True Home, Karen Abbott

Children's Book and Media Review

Mona's house is swept away in a storm. The homeless mouse wanders looking for a new home until she comes to the Heartwood Hotel. Mr. Heartwood offers Mona a place to spend the night in exchange for helping the maid, a squirrel named Tilly. Tilly is not happy about it, but comforts herself that it is only for one night. In the morning Mr. Heartwood offers Mona a position through the fall and Tilly is dismayed again. Mona soon feels at home among the employees and guests and even saves the hotel from a sleepy bear with her courage and …

Don't Tell!, Maryn Wheeler

Children's Book and Media Review

How did you find out about this book? A girl and her animal friends try to find out who told the reader about this super-secret book. Harvey, the elephant, admits to telling the secret. He likes to share secrets rather than keep them. The girl and animals comfort Harvey and admit that they tell their family and friends secrets too. In the end, the girl decides they should tell everyone about the secret book.

All Aboard For The Bobo Road, Sydnee Burr

Children's Book and Media Review

Big Ali is driving his minibus to Bobo Road, the most beautiful road in the world. His two children ride atop the bus and help all the passengers load their cargo. The bus drives by hippos, beautiful waterfalls, rock domes, a forest, and finally into the city. All the while, Ali's children help load bikes, food, luggage, and even animals onto the bus. When the passengers arrive in the city, they take their belongings to the market to sell them, and Ali surprises his children with a special present for all their hard work: a pot of rice, beans, and …

A Mighty Bitey Creature, Robyn Lee

Children's Book and Media Review

Frog is minding his own business when suddenly something takes a bite out of his little green bottom. On his way to tell King Lion what has happened and get help, he runs into a series of friends who also get bitten. Finally, when they all find King Lion, the Mighty Bitey Creature bites him as well. After looking around, they find a tiny animal baby that is just hungry for dinner. All the Jungle animals share their food and eventually the creature settles in for bed without needing to try to eat everything in sight.

Decolonizing Adoption Narratives For Transnational Reproductive Justice, Sung Hee Yook, Hosu Kim

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In their article “Decolonizing Adoption Narratives for Transnational Reproductive Justice,” Sung Hee Yook and Hosu Kim examine narratives emerging from transnational adoption practices, focusing on how birth mothers’ narratives—in which a victim-mother makes choices to give a child for adoption in hopes of a better life for the child, and awaits that child’s return—develop alongside and deviate from the normative orders of motherhood. While birth mothers’ self-transformative narrative illuminates their subjectivities—apart from victimhood, simmering in the latent form of agency—Yook and Kim argue that a compelling narrative of self-mastery produces another discursive trap which renders the numerous less-masterful birth mothers …

Mindfulness And Heightened Consciousness In Phillip Zarrilli’S Psychophysical Approach To Acting, Tsu-Chung Su

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Mindfulness and Heightened Consciousness in Phillip Zarrilli’s Psychophysical Approach to Acting," Tsu-Chung Su intends to explore the significance of mindfulness and heightened consciousness in Zarrilli’s psychophysical approach to acting. Su first traces and discusses the Chinese and Indian sources, resources, and knowledge that have forged Zarrilli’s psychophysical acting techniques, theories, and approaches. Then, he critically examines and assesses the efficacy of Zarrilli’s approach which combines Western theatrical concepts and techniques with what he self-consciously borrows from Chinese qi and taijiquan, Indian ayurvedic medicine, Vedic philosophy, performing aesthetics, Hindu religion, kathakali, yoga, meditation, massage, and kalarippayattu …

Adopting The Unadoptable/Disabled Subject In The Posthuman Era, Fu-Jen Chen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Adopting the Unadoptable/Disabled Subject in the Posthuman Era,” Fu-Jen Chen first examines three memoirs that demonstrate prevalent features of today’s narratives by parents with adopted children of special needs and next offers a theoretical and ontological investigation of disability. He suggests that we have to change the way we relate to disability: to recognize it not as an external limitation but an internal as well as pre-existent division and to re-orient ourselves to the ontological truth that we are always already “disabled/otherized” especially in the posthuman era when the body is seen to exceed existing boundaries of …

A Sinful Reaction To Capitalist Ethics In No Quiero Quedarme Sola Y Vacía (2006), Celina Bortolotto

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article “A Sinful Reaction to Capitalist Ethics in No quiero quedarme sola y vacía (2006)” Celina Bortolotto analyzes how Lozada’s characterization of the main character, La Loca, questions the ideals of free agency offered by consumerist capitalism and the urban gay male ideal under the promise of a liberating gay lifestyle in a social context defined by identity politics. The novel is a fictionalized autobiographical account of Puerto Rican author Angel Lozada’s misadventures in the early 2000s gay scene in New York. This essay plays with the punitive sense of the word “capital” in the seven capital sins …

Changez/Cengiz's Changing Beliefs In The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Valerie Kennedy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Changez/Cengiz's Changing Beliefs in The Reluctant Fundamentalist” Valerie Kennedy analyzes the interrelation of individual subjectivity and global capitalism and the conflict between two belief systems in Mohsin Hamid’s novel. These are, first, a neoliberal system that sees individuals as rationally self-interested, mobile, economic units, and, second, a system based on a humanist definition of individuals as defined by nation, family, and tradition. Changez, the novel’s protagonist, initially endorses the first, but later rejects it for the second, due to his growing awareness of the impact on Pakistan of American geopolitics after 9/11. The essay also examines …

Innovation, Entrepreneurship, And The Spirit Of Digital Capitalism, Collin Chua

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article “Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and the Spirit of Digital Capitalism,”Collin Chua analyzes the myth of innovation and the fantasy of entrepreneurship. The article draws on foundational perspectives regarding the spirit of capitalism established by Max Weber, later extended by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello. The myth of innovation is interrogated, as innovation now operates as a rhetorical and managerial strategy that must be pursued in order to be competitive in today’s capitalist system. The fantasy of entrepreneurship is explored, as it serves as a coping mechanism for the fragmentation and erosion of traditional work arrangements and structures. The article …

Screening Religiosity In Contemporary Polish Films. The Role Of Religious Motifs In Visual Communication., Mariola Marczak

Journal of Religion & Film

In the paper the Polish contemporary cinema has been explored as a vehicle through which films can reflect and communicate social issues, such as religiosity of Polish society, the character of it, the ways of expression and values promoted by it. The main components of modern Polish religiosity are shown as they are exhibited in film works perceived as part of modern visual culture. The examination also comprises most frequently and typically tools used for communicating or revealing the transcendent sphere in the contemporary Polish films, such as Christ-figures - including apocryphal ones and parables. They are considered as a …

‘I Am That Very Witch’: On The Witch, Feminism, And Not Surviving Patriarchy, Laurel Zwissler

Journal of Religion & Film

While contemporary discussions about witchcraft include reinterpretations and feminist reclamations, early modern accusations contained no such complexity. It is this historical witch as misogynist nightmare that the film, The Witch: A New England Folktale (2015), expresses so effectively. Within the film, the very patriarchal structures that decry witchcraft – the Puritan church from which the family exiles itself, the male headship to which the parents so desperately cling, the insistence, in the face of repeated failure, on the viability of the isolated nuclear family unit – are the same structures that inevitably foreclose the options of the lead character, Thomasin.

A Journey Into The Heart Of God: Darren Aronofsky’S Noah (2014) As A Subversive Kabbalistic Text, Lindsay Macumber, Magi Abdul-Masih

Journal of Religion & Film

The title of this paper reflects our interpretation of this film as a subversive mystical text, from within the Jewish tradition of Kabbalah. This interpretation is itself the product of a long journey of thinking about, and wrestling with this film in various ways. In this paper, we will outline this journey, concentrating on our first impressions of the film, some notable shifts in our thinking on this film that alerted us to the connection between the film and Jewish mysticism, and some concluding remarks about the implications of this reading.

Ask The Beasts Of The Southern Wild: Exploring Human Identity As Beast, Being And Beholder In Ask The Beasts: Darwin And The God Of Love And Beasts Of The Southern Wild, Stephanie Cherpak Clary

Journal of Religion & Film

Anthropocentrism and hierarchical dualism together encourage a dangerous anthropology where human primacy among creation and the prioritization of certain humans leads to destruction for all. During a time when suffering caused by climate change continues to intensify, it is increasingly important to find compelling ways to share the stories of those who suffer most. I will explore how Beasts of the Southern Wild (Zeitlin, 2012) contextualizes the ecofeminist theology found in Johnson’s Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love (2014), specifically the idea of humans identifying as beasts, beings and beholders. Furthermore, I will discuss how the representation …

Trickster Ambivalence In Kwaw Ansah’S Praising The Lord Plus One, Adwoa Opoku-Agyemang

Journal of Religion & Film

Kwaw Ansah’s film Praising the Lord Plus One revolves around a crooked charismatic preacher. This paper examines him as one of the manifestations of the West African trickster. Though the figure of the trickster is bound to West African folktales, his familiar, contradictory and ultimately funny features transcend the oral tale to manifest in other media. The article examines Gabriel’s self-transformation into a miracle-maker, his utilization of that identity, and his unmaking. It looks at how biblical exegesis and Christian rites, while apparently major aspects of the film, are reduced to marketing tools for sustaining the trickster ethos. The paper …

A Newcomer's Guide To Kabbalah, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

Kabbalah is a mystical and highly spiritual form of Judaism. Popularized by its endorsement by high-profile celebrities like Madonna, the average layperson knows enough about Kabbalah to recognize it as a vaguely familiar term, but not much else. This article strives to serve as an entry-point for both an intellectual and a popular audience to help familiarize readers with core components of Kabbalah and to help to begin fostering an appreciation for this very sophisticated faith. Matters of history, philosophy, science, doctrine, and more pertaining to Kabbalah will be discussed in this article

Automatic Dubbing Of Videos With Multiple Speakers, Sandro Feuz, Mohammadamin Barekatain

Defensive Publications Series

A machine-learning model that automatically converts audio streams from an audio-visual content from a source language to a destination language is described. In response to determining that an audio stream should be translated, a machine-learning-based dubbing model is invoked for a specific destination language. In case of multiple speakers, voice embedding techniques are used to match dubbed audio streams to the corresponding speakers. The sentiment in the original speaker’s voice is preserved by training the model with targeted data set in the destination language.

The Wonders Of The Augsburg Cabinet: Three Ways Of Experiencing A Document, Kiersten F. Latham

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Since even before Frohmann (2009) proposed his document analysis on the meaning of cabinets of curiosity, I have been fascinated with them. Their emergence in the 15th century (MacGregor, 2007) is also the tantalizing beginnings of the birth of the modern museum. In museum studies, we often ask what the meaning of the museum is today (Latham & Simmons, 2014); I believe that part of the answer to this question is in these curious compartmentalized pieces of furniture that held the wonders of the world and helped users make meaning a very long time ago.

One can see examples of …

Documents And Moral Knowledge: Art In Yellowstone National Park, Tim Gorichanaz

Proceedings from the Document Academy

Documents have traditionally been conceptualized as representations of reality. Recently, scholars have been exploring how documents can also construct reality. In this paper, I follow this thread, discussing how documents can supply moral knowledge, showing what people ought to value in the world, thereby guiding action. Specifically, I discuss two works of art depicting Yellowstone National Park: a painting by Thomas Moran, done in the 19th century; and a photograph by Michael Nichols, from the 21st. Both of these works respond to a dualism in the human relationship to the wilderness, dating back at least to the European colonization of …

The Documentality Of Memory In The Post-Truth Era, Claire Scopsi

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This article analyzes the documentality of memories in order to ground further consideration of memory for historical research in the post-truth era. The article compares discussions of the document in document theory to those in French historical epistemology in order to establish what is a reliable documentary source. Formerly, reliability was rooted in the paradigm of truth and the authenticity guaranteed by institutions and scientists. In today's post-truth era, these foundations are questioned. This article suggests that we consider the production of historical narratives as a design process, and that we evaluate the truthfulness of a source according to three …

Auto-Documentality As Rights And Powers, Ronald E. Day

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This paper discusses beings and their rights in terms of philosophical and documentation ontology. It discusses animal rights, rights of nature, and human rights. It discusses the role of representation in documents, documentation theory, and documentality. It discusses the difference between documentation and documentality,

Stuck In Somatic Countertransference: A Heuristic Study, Katie Hochleutner

Creative Arts Therapies Theses

This heuristic research study explored how somatic countertransference in my own body, as a clinician, is related to my freeze response when working with clients in a behavioral health hospital. Primary questions that led the research, included: what does somatic countertransference feel like in my own body as a clinician, what happens in my body during a stress response of freezing, and, how can I modulate through my stress response to become regulated in session? These curiosities led to my ultimate research question, how can I, as an emerging dance/movement therapist, modulate through my freeze response while experiencing somatic countertransference …