Digital Commons Network^™

The "Chinaman" Question: A Conundrum In Us Imperial Policy In The Pacific, Richard Chu

Kritika Kultura

When the US took over the Philippines from Spain in 1898, it faced the dilemma of how to deal with the “Chinaman” question. While it applied the same Chinese exclusion law in the Philippines as it did in the mainland, the situation in the colony differed in a significant way—the Chinese had long been part of the Philippine economy and society. Faced with the task of constructing a “Filipino” nation in its own image, the US therefore had to find ways to separate the Chinese from the rest of the population. One of the ways by which it accomplished this …

Feminism Across Our Generation, Delia D. Aguilar

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Responses To "Dancing Into Oblivion", Ricardo G. Abad

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

‘En Shaddud: Early Bronze Age Settlement, Middle Bronze And Iron Age Burial Remains And A Hellenistic Farmstead At The Foot Of Tel Shaddud, Karen Covello-Paran, Tali Kan-Cipor-Meron

Qadum: Journal of Excavation Reports from Israel

This study presents findings from excavations at the foot of Tel Shaddud, focusing on settlement and burial patterns across various historical periods. Evidence from the Early Bronze I layer reveals the initial settlement characterized by stone-paved floors and extensive habitation extending towards the nearby spring of ‘En Shaddud. The Middle Bronze I tombs uncovered indicate a cemetery below the tell, containing artifacts that reflect burial practices consistent with warrior traditions in the region. Notably, the analysis of burial offerings indicates continued cemetery use into the Iron Age. Hellenistic remains suggest a transition to agricultural use, with well-constructed farmstead features emerging …

Excerpts From Gun Dealer's Daughter, Gina Apostol

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Interview With Gina Apostol, Daryll Delgado

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

The Marginaliad: Reading Gina Apostol's The Revolution According To Raymundo Mata, Paul S. De Guzman

Kritika Kultura

This review, which discusses Gina Apostol’s second novel, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata (Anvil Publishing, 2009), raises two main points. First, it looks at how the novel uses various devices to fragment and distort the narrative, and how using such devices allows the novel to dramatize its own dependence on and misgivings about narrative cohesiveness. Second, the review looks at how the novel uses humor and wordplay to leaven the book’s serious subject matter. Also tackled in the review is the influence on the novel of other texts, particularly the Gospels, the stories of Jorge Luis Borges, and Vladimir …

Our Willful Naiveté Shall Set Us Free: An Ongoing Conversation With Miguel Syjuco, Adam David

Kritika Kultura

First eleven thousand words of an ongoing Canada-Cubao correspondence. Two young writers talk about writing: albeit both are provisionally despondent, incredibly, no one waxes nostalgic. Topics discussed: writing about home from a distance of an ocean and a continent, toughing it out journeyman-style, bayanihan vs. crab mentality, literature vs. everything else, the Great Pinoy Novel, and other pretentious, quite possibly neocolonial things.

The Communality Of Creativity And The Creativity Of Community: A Comparison Of The Ethics Of Nikolai Berdyaev And Watsuji Tetsurō, Anton Luis Sevilla

Kritika Kultura

Self-fidelity is a human ethical task. But how can we be faithful to a self that is both individual and social? This paper takes up this question by comparing the basic ethical frameworks of Nikolai Berdyaev and Watsuji Tetsurō. In the first section of this paper, Berdyaev’s notion of personality and his three forms of ethics (ethics of law, ethics of redemption, and ethics of creativeness) are discussed. In the second section, Watsuji’s notion of ethics as the study of man (ningen) is explored, detailing the dual structure of ningen and the double-negation of ethics. And in the third section, …

Paano Nga Ba Ang Peta Play (O Ano Nga Ba Ang Isang Play Na Matatawag Na Petang-Peta), Manuel D. Pambid

Kritika Kultura

In telling the story of PETA, or the Philippine Educational Theater Association, this article reflects on the distinct characteristics that PETA plays have acquired in the more than 40 years it has served as the people’s theater—from the martial law years to the present, for the continuous expression of Filipino culture and heritage. The article shows the variety of PETA plays and the people behind their collaborative production, and ends with the present challenges of PETA as it reaches out to a younger generation of audience.

The Aesthetics Of Poverty: A Rationale In Designing For Philippine People's Theater 1973-1986, Brenda V. Fajardo

Kritika Kultura

This article will discuss the production design approaches and techniques used in plays by the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) from 1973-1986, using the principles of “aesthetics of poverty.” The “aesthetics of poverty” came about in consideration of the poverty situation of the Philippines and is really an attitude more than anything else, appropriate for the social conditions of Philippine society. This was also the period when there was very limited budget for productions, the result of which was creating with one’s imagination and clear imaging for meanings and symbolic representation.

"At A Loss For Words": Theatre, Performance And The Northern Ireland Prison Protests, Lionel Pilkington

Kritika Kultura

In plays as diverse as Brian Friel’s The Freedom of the City, Frank McGuinness’s Carthaginians and Vincent Woods’s At the Black Pig’s Dyke, there is evidence of an intemperate opposition to the idea of republicans performing protest against the state in Northern Ireland. Using Augusto Boal’s conception of theatre as a cultural weapon with a powerful emancipatory and utopian potential (“theatre as a rehearsal for revolution”) and drawing on Joseph Roach and Nicholas Argenti’s ideas of the kinesthetic imagination, this essay considers the republican prison protests that took place Ireland in the period 1978-81. “At a Loss for Words” argues …

The Advent Of Modern Irish Drama And The Abjection Of Peasant Popular Culture: Folklore, Fairs And Faction Fighting, Mark Phelan

Kritika Kultura

This paper is part of a larger project in which the author is interested in recovering popular performative traditions and practices that have been occluded by the modernist project of the Irish Revival. This erasure has been compounded by subsequent historiographical paradigms that have reinforced the revivalist narrative of theatre history and excluded indigenous forms, traditions and practices (mumming, rhymers, strawboys) along with the wider performative culture of patterns, wakes, fairs, faction fights etc. This essay subjects to scrutiny what the author sees as a disjuncture between the riotous reality of peasant popular culture and its representation in Revivalist dramas …

"A Note On What Happened": Experimental Influences On The Irish Stage: 1919-1929, Elaine Sisson

Kritika Kultura

This essay proposes that stage design offers a means of establishing visual links to an aesthetically radical European modernism which was being explored by a post-Revolutionary generation of Irish artists and writers. Existing histories and critical studies of Irish theatre privilege literary approaches and consequently a rich seam of contextual visual material and information has been neglected. Given theatre’s important cultural role in shaping questions of national identity, “A Note on What Happened” argues that the study of theatre as spectacle is crucial to an understanding of how contemporary Irish audiences were introduced to avant-garde ideas.

Sean O'Casey And Radical Theatre, Terry Phillips

Kritika Kultura

Sean O’Casey’s work after the Dublin trilogy has been neglected to a great extent by both theatre audiences and literary critics. This essay considers three plays which address specifically Irish issues, The Silver Tassie (1926), The Star Turns Red (1940) and Red Roses for Me (1943). Taken together, they may be understood as a radical response to successive counter-revolutionary indigenous governments: Cumann Na nGaedheal (1922-1932) and Fianna Fáil (1932-1948). The essay concludes that these plays ground the case for O’Casey as a radical Irish playwright—socially, politically and aesthetically.

"To Speak Your Truth": Dialogues On Political Theatre And The Troubles, Bill Mcdonell, Joe Reid

Kritika Kultura

This essay is structured in two sections: At the outset, Bill McDonnell provides an overview of the broader political and cultural context which produced Belfast Community Theatre, and other significant grass-roots Republican community theatres from the 1970s. Together, and especially in the case of Republican theatre groups, the essay argues that they constitute the only radical theatres in post-1945 Britain and Ireland to meet Erwin Piscator’s stringent criteria for a political theatre. This is followed by a series of dialogues on theatre and the war in the north of Ireland, which take up the larger part of the essay. The …

Fostering Conceptual Roles For Change: Identity And Agency In Esea Teacher Preparation, Brian Morgan

Kritika Kultura

English Changing, the theme and title of the 2009 ESEA conference held in Manila, raises specific challenges for language teacher education: To what extent do we prepare teachers to be passive recipients of the social, cultural, and economic changes that align with the global spread of English? Alternatively, how might we encourage teachers to become active participants—“agents of change”—through their mediation and implementation of language curricula and pedagogy? The author addresses such questions by first reflecting on his own personal and professional development in EFL and EAP teaching contexts. These experiences are then related to the growing research literature in …

Radical Remembering: Contaminating Memory In The Works Of Martin Lynch, Tom Maguire

Kritika Kultura

Martin Lynch has been prominent in the practice of community theatre in Northern Ireland through works like The Stone Chair and The Wedding Community Play and his role as founding Chair of Belfast’s Community Arts Forum. This essay argues, however, that in his work as a playwright engaged in staging the remembered histories of Belfast’s working class, it is possible to regard him as a radical playwright. Locating Lynch in the tradition of John McGrath’s popular theatre allows his work to be seen as both recovering working class experience and, crucially, probing mythologies that have justified and perpetuated political violence. …

World Englishes And Higher Education, Ahmar Mahboob

Kritika Kultura

This paper explores the relationship between World Englishes and Higher Education by focusing on the meaning making resources used by “users” of different varieties/dialects of World Englishes. The results of the study indicate that if we focus on the “uses” of language in particular contexts, we find patterns of similarities that are shared by speakers of diverse varieties of World Englishes. These findings support the broader literature on genres that show that language patterns on use—that is, patterns in language relate to specific contexts of use. In such contexts, the identity of the user seems to be less important than …

Front Matter, Kritika Kultura

Kritika Kultura

No abstract provided.

Method And System For Mitigating Cognitive Driver Distraction From In-Vehicle Conversations, Anonymous

Defensive Publications Series

Driver distraction is a significant safety concern, with passenger conversations contributing significantly to cognitive load. While physical distractions are often addressed, in-vehicle conversational dynamics and their impact on driver attention remain largely unmanaged. Intense or emotionally charged conversations can significantly reduce driver focus, regardless of the number of passengers. Current systems lack the capability to monitor and mitigate the cognitive distraction arising from in-car interactions. This invention addresses this critical gap by leveraging existing vehicle systems to manage in-car conversational tone and enhance driver focus.

Existing methods primarily focus on physical distractions, neglecting the cognitive impact of in-vehicle conversations. Adding …

Engaging Graduate Students In Three Easy Steps: Failures And Successes From Back-To-Back Years, Rhonda Rosen, Raymundo Andrade, Alexander Justice

Journal of Graduate Librarianship

In Fall 2022, three librarians representing the outreach and engagement department and reference and instruction department at Loyola Marymount University’s William H. Hannon Library developed a three-part orientation experience to welcome new theological studies graduate students. The three parts consisted of a 10-minute welcome via Zoom by two outreach librarians; a “meet and greet” library orientation and VIP tour co-presented by an outreach librarian and the librarian for theological studies; and an in-depth instruction session led by the librarian for theological studies. With lessons learned and student feedback collected in Fall 2022, the librarians aimed to improve this three-point plan …

The Collected Poems Of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024), Edited By Christina Scull And Wayne G. Hammond., John R. Holmes

Journal of Tolkien Research

Book review, by John R. Holmes, of The Collected Poems of J.R.R. Tolkien (2024), edited by Christina Scull and Wayne G. Hammond

Universal Basic Income Policy And Its Potential Impact On Welfare Reform, Adriana S. Hines, Lindsay Gietzen

Pacific Journal of Health

This systematic review synthesizes the current Universal Basic Income (UBI) research. As income inequality continues to affect health outcomes, UBI has been proposed as a strategy to reduce gaps in healthcare access, food security, housing, and overall well-being. The review examines 12 peer-reviewed articles to understand how UBI can impact the direct and indirect factors contributing to the disparities that the current welfare system may not adequately address. The findings indicate that UBI can help alleviate poverty-related stress, potentially leading to better mental and physical health outcomes through improved nutrition, more stable housing, and greater life satisfaction. Additionally, UBI has …

Nelson James Spruiell

African American Funeral Programs

No abstract provided.

Preparing Spiritually Resilient Warriors In The Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, Vic Morris

Doctor of Ministry Major Applied Project

Morris, Victor E. “Preparing Spiritually Resilient Warriors in the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command.” Doctor of Ministry. Major Applied Project, Concordia Seminary, 2024. 285 pp.

The Canadian Armed Forces has outcomes and expectations for warriors to be spiritually resilient but does not have a training program that has been researched, tested, and validated to achieve this. This study investigates how chaplains can prepare spiritually resilient warriors in CANSOFCOM. A chaplain-led spiritual resilience course was created and delivered to CANSOFCOM members. The course was aligned with the holistic wellness strategy of OPF2, and designed as an inductive, experiential learning experience. An …

Horticulture Interventions Impact On Eating Disorder Symptoms, Taylor Kline

Counselor Education Capstones

Nature-based counseling offers a wide variety of options that counselors could incorporate into their session as a complementary form of counseling paired with another theory. Specifically, horticulture interventions have been found to increase clients’ self-efficacy and self-esteem, as well as reduce anxiety, which are all common symptoms of eating disorders. With the lack of research on horticulture interventions and the idea of utilizing them within the treatment of eating disorders, the contents of this paper aim to point out the variety of benefits of said interventions on common symptoms that are often related to eating disorders. Future research should focus …

Navigating Caregiving: Community Resources And Support Systems For Individuals With Severe Mental Illness Living With Aging Parents, Adam Thai

DNP Qualifying Manuscripts

People with severe mental illness (SMI) who are cared for by aging parents are a growing concern within the community, due to their potential high utilization on healthcare facilities and community infrastructure. Many utilize hospitals and emergency departments to seek behavioral, social, and housing support instead of outpatient behavioral healthcare. There is a disconnect in finding social support that is a result of learned reliance and dependence on their aging parents for financial and caregiving support. Healthcare providers should be mindful of the long-term issues this population faces once they are without parental support, such as increased risks for criminality …

Converting Lignocellulosic Biomass Into Valuable End Products For Decentralized Energy Solutions: A Comprehensive Overview, Ahmed Aboulmagd Dr., Ahmad Mustafa, Shah Faisal, Jaswinder Singh, Boutaina Rezki, Karan Kumar, Vijayanand Moholkar, Ozben Kutlu, Hamdy Thabet, Zeinhom El-Bahy, Oguzhan Der, Cassamo Mussagy, Luigi Di Bitonto, Mushtaq Ahmad, Carlo Pastore

Renewable Mechanical Energy

This review manuscript delves into lignocellulosic biomass (LCB) as a sustainable energy source, addressing the global demand for renewable alternatives amidst increasing oil and gas consumption and solid waste production. LCB, consisting of lignin, cellulose, and hemicellulose, is versatile for biochemical and thermochemical conversions like anaerobic digestion, fermentation, gasification, and pyrolysis. Recent advancements have led to a 25 % increase in bioethanol yields through alkali pre-treatment and optimized fermentation, a 20 % enhancement in microbial delignification efficiency, and a 35 % improvement in enzyme efficiency via nanobiotechnology. These innovations enhance biofuel production sustainability and cost-effectiveness. Decentralized energy systems utilizing locally …

Utilizing Large Language Models To Synthesize Product Desirability Datasets, John D. Hastings, Sherri Weitl-Harms, Joseph Doty, Zachary L. Myers, Warren Thompson

Research & Publications

This research explores the application of large language models (LLMs) to generate synthetic datasets for Product Desirability Toolkit (PDT) testing, a key component in evaluating user sentiment and product experience. Utilizing gpt-4o-mini, a cost-effective alternative to larger commercial LLMs, three methods, Word+Review, Review+Word, and Supply-Word, were each used to synthesize 1000 product reviews. The generated datasets were assessed for sentiment alignment, textual diversity, and data generation cost. Results demonstrated high sentiment alignment across all methods, with Pearson correlations ranging from 0.93 to 0.97. Supply-Word exhibited the highest diversity and coverage of PDT terms, although with increased generation costs. Despite minor …