Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Using The Internet Platform Second Life To Teach Social Justice, Sharon Kaye, Earl Spurgin

Earl W. Spurgin

Second Life, an on-line, interactive environment in which users create avatars through which they have virtual experiences, is a contemporary experiment in utopia. While most often it is used for social networking, it also is used for commercial and educational purposes, as well as for political activism. Here, we share the results from a course that uses Second Life as a tool for examining social justice. We examine the notion of utopia, present the results of a pre- and post-survey designed to measure the effectiveness of our Second Life course, and relate insights gleaned from the centerpiece assignment of the …

Geothermal Resources Under The Mining Law Regime--Problems & Possibilities, Richard A. Grisel

Richard A Grisel

The development of geothermal resources has been greatly hampered by the legal and institutional framework governing geothermal energy resources. This framework has been plagued by conflicting mining and water laws, anachronistic common law systems of property rights, problematic legal classifications of geothermal resources, and jurisdictional variances from state to state and between states and the Federal government. These issues have combined to significantly hinder the development of what will be a vital resource for our nation’s future energy needs.

This thesis concerns one way to address the suboptimal development of geothermal energy resources. Using the Federal acquisition of exclusive airspace …

Wiki Leaks Revelations In Global Context—The War Between ‘Right To Publish’ And ‘Ethical Code Of Conduct, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. WikiLeaks describes its founders as a mix of Chinese dissidents, journalists, mathematicians, and start-up company technologists from the United States, Taiwan, Europe, Australia, and South Africa. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its director. The site was originally launched as a user-editable wiki, but has progressively moved towards …

Holmes And Dissent, Allen P. Mendenhall

Allen Mendenhall

Holmes saw the dissent as a mechanism to advance and preserve arguments and as a pageant for wordplay. Dissents, for Holmes, occupied an interstitial space between law and non-law. The thought and theory of pragmatism allowed him to recreate the dissent as a stage for performative text, a place where signs and syntax could mimic the environment of the particular time and place and in so doing become, or strive to become, law. Holmes’s dissents were sites of aesthetic adaptation. The language of his dissents was acrobatic. It acted and reacted and called attention to itself. The more provocative and …

A Critical Study Of Organizational Communication And Organizational Communication Theories- A Historical Perspective, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Organizational Communication is the study that looks at human communication within and outside the organization. Conrad and Poole (1998) break the definition of organizational communication in parts, by first defining communication and then analyses the organization. These researchers define communication as “a process through which people, acting together, create, sustain, and manage meanings through the use of verbal and nonverbal signs and symbols within a particular context” (Conrad and Poole, 1998, p. 5). In the context of this book, Kenyans and their leaders are communicating their views and final decision through the ballot box to elect their third president, during …

Op-Ed: Occupiers Begin 'To Build A New Democracy', Stephen D'Arcy

Stephen D'Arcy

A defence of the Occupy movement.

From Vulgar Words To Lightening Bolts: Nietzsche On Style, Language And Experience, Erika Kerruish

Dr Erika Kerruish

Nietzsche writes that literary styles must be taken into account when determining meaning. To not do so vulgarizes language. The importance of style to meaning is best understood by examining the relationship between language and experience. Style requires readers to experience the particularity of texts if they are to understand their meaning, and style is experienced and evaluated in terms of the audience’s ethos. Through style’s ability to provide alternative perspectives on the audience’s linguistic norms, language is not limited to reiterating common generalisations but expresses the unfamiliar, rare and evolving.

Public Accountability And Media : Its Success And Failure In Performing The Role As A Force For Public Accountability, Ratnesh Dwivedi Mr

Ratnesh Dwivedi

Media accountability is a phrase that refers to the general (especially western) belief that mass media has to be accountable in the public’s interest - that is, they are expected to behave in certain ways that contribute to the public good. The concept is not clearly defined, and often collides with commercial interests of media owners; legal issues, such as the constitutional right to the freedom of the press in the U.S.; and governmental concerns about public security and order. Several international organizations, like International Freedom of Expression Exchange, Freedom House, International Press Institute, World Press Freedom Committee and the …

Mechanisms (Oxford), Stuart Glennan

Stuart Glennan

Mechanism is undoubtedly a causal concept, in the sense that ordinary definitions and philosophical analyses explicate the concept in terms of other causal concepts such as production and interaction. Given this fact, many philosophers have supposed that analyses of the concept of mechanism, while they might appeal to philosophical theories about the nature of causation, could do little to inform such theories. On the other hand, methods of causal inference and explanation appeal to mechanisms. Discovering a mechanism is the gold standard for establishing and explaining causal connections. This fact suggests that it might be possible to provide an analysis …

Gauging Gender: A Metaphysics, Stephen Asma

Stephen T Asma

In this article the author discusses sex and gender in human beings and examines how the study of science, particularly biology, has influenced the study of these subjects in higher education. It traces the evolution of sex and gender studies in academe, comments on the failure of many humanities scholars to dismiss biology in studying human behavior, and explores ways in which psychoanalysis, social constructionism, and metaphysics have informed the debate over the differences between sex and gender. Other topics include research conducted by Anne Fausto-Sterling regarding intersexed people, scientific tests focusing on sexual preference in rats, and thoughts by …

Moral Conviction, Matthew Pianalto

Matthew Pianalto

We often praise people who stand by their convictions in the face of adversity and practice what they preach. However, strong moral convictions can also motivate atrocious acts. Two significant questions here are (1) whether conviction itself — taken as a mode of belief — has any distinctive value, or whether all the value of conviction derives from its substantive content, and (2) how conviction can be made responsible in a way that mitigates the risks of falling into dogmatism, fanaticism, and other vices. In response to the first question, I suggest that conviction has instrumental value that derives from …

Gaining Ground: Towards A Discourse Of Posthuman Animality: A Geophilosophical Journey (Presentation), Anne Louise Schillmoller

Anne Schillmoller

A Powerpoint slide presentation which, through the use of images and geospatial metaphors, explores the human-animal binary.

The Cogito Arguments Of Descartes And Augustine, Joyce Lazier

joyce lazier

Descartes Cogito reconstructed in its basic logical format.

Categorical Imperative As The Source Of Morality, Joyce Lazier

joyce lazier

No abstract provided.

One Way Up Through The Way Back Into The Out Of Ontotheology (Powerpoint), Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein

Mary-Jane Rubenstein

This is the powerpoint presentation associated with the lecture whose video can be found at http://condor.wesleyan.edu/openmedia/upub/video/lectures/fall2011/theory/theory_10_05_11.m4v. Please see the text version above, if it would be helpful.

Ethics And Experience: Life Beyond Moral Theory, Harry Gensler, S.J.

Harry J. Gensler, S.J.

The article reviews the book "Ethics and Experience: Life Beyond Moral Theory," by Timothy Chappell.

The Question Of Palestine And The Subversion Of Academic Freedom, Matthew Abraham

Matthew Abraham

No abstract provided.

Nature And Convention: Defining A Spoken Language In Aristotle’S De Interpretatione, Charlene Elsby

Charlene Elsby

No abstract provided.

Welcome To Mcdonalds, How May I Exploit You? Fast Food’S Corporate Social Responsibility To Lower-Income Areas, Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

Jennifer T.R. Tomlinson

One Way Up Through The Way Back Into The Out Of Ontotheology, Mary-Jane V. Rubenstein

Mary-Jane Rubenstein

This is the text of the lecture whose video can be found at http://condor.wesleyan.edu/openmedia/upub/video/lectures/fall2011/theory/theory_10_05_11.m4v. Please also see the powerpoint presentation, posted below.

Art Of Life: Gauguin’S Language Of Color And Shape, Eva Maria Raepple

Eva Maria Raepple

Friedrich Nietzsche, the nineteenth century philosopher (1844 -1900), whose works speak of his unyielding search for an art of life, warns of the serpent’s promise, a promise that according to Genesis 3 foreshadows tribulations. On the stage of life the promise to know, to know as a subject that actively grasps the world, is an alluring, call, one that permits free spirits to explore and design life as a work of art beyond the confines of the herd. A changing role of the knowing and imagining subject in the nineteenth century enticed philosophers and inspired artists, unleashing their creativeness to …

Divan Japonais: Toulouse-Lautrec And Japanese Art, Eva Maria Raepple

Eva Maria Raepple

The French nineteenth century artists Henry Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) is known for his distinctive style and bold character portraits of the theatrical scene of the gaslight era in Paris. The paper examines some of the formative influences of eighteenth century Japanese art on the development of visual characters, with specific focus on a lithograph entitled Divan Japonais. Alluding to the refined representation of Japanese courtesans, subtle nuanced reminiscences to an ideal of elegance create an allusion to highly respected courtesans in the Japanese ‘Green Houses’ of the Asian Yoshiwara the famous “Good Luck Meadow” in Edo, present day Tokyo. I argue …

Setting The Word Into Motion: Textual Visuality In The Bible Moralisée, Vienna Codex 2554, Eva Maria Raepple

Eva Maria Raepple

This article examines the relation between the biblical Word and visuality in one of the surviving early thirteenth century manuscripts of the Bible moraliseé, the codex Vindobonensis 2554 today housed in Vienna. The analysis focuses specifically on the relations between word and visuality. The goal is to investigate the vitality that may set the Word into motion. It is argued that the matrix of textual visuality in the Vienna codex 2554 is used as an effective tool that adds vitality to the biblical passages while simultaneously creating a firm hierarchy of representation and resemblances that enforces not only certain norms …

"Experience Does Not Err" (Leonardo Da Vinci) - Artwork As A Mirror Of Nature, Eva Maria Raepple

Eva Maria Raepple

The relation between seeing, knowledge, and language has concerned philosophers and artists throughout history. The current article examines the relation between word, image, and knowledge in some prominent Renaissance artworks. It is argued that the shift from revelatory truth in the word to evidence in “seeing the real” as Leonardo da Vinci (1452 -1519) argues in his writings, marks a moment in history in which the human being takes center stage as the interpreter of knowledge. In the search for perfect proportionality and beautiful harmony, Renaissance artists, therefore, did not just create an aesthetic dimension yet were central in a …

Philip Marlowe: Knight-Errant In Plato’S Cave, Jim Stockton

Jim Stockton

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Consort Extension For Cluster Randomised Trials On Quality Of Reporting And Study Methodology: Review Of Random Sample Of 300 Trials, 2000-8, N. Ivers, M. Taljaard, Stephanie Dixon, C. Bennett, A. Mcrae, J. Taleban, Z. Skea, J. Brehaut, R. Boruch, M. Eccles, J. Grimshaw, Charles Weijer, M. Zwarenstein, A. Donner

Charles Weijer

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of the 2004 extension of the CONSORT guidelines on the reporting and methodological quality of cluster randomised trials.

DESIGN: Methodological review of 300 randomly sampled cluster randomised trials. Two reviewers independently abstracted 14 criteria related to quality of reporting and four methodological criteria specific to cluster randomised trials. We compared manuscripts published before CONSORT (2000-4) with those published after CONSORT (2005-8). We also investigated differences by journal impact factor, type of journal, and trial setting.

DATA SOURCES: A validated Medline search strategy. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Cluster randomised trials published in English language journals, …

Impact Of Consort Extension For Cluster Randomised Trials On Quality Of Reporting And Study Methodology: Review Of Random Sample Of 300 Trials, 2000-8, N. Ivers, M. Taljaard, Stephanie Dixon, C. Bennett, A. Mcrae, J. Taleban, Z. Skea, J. Brehaut, R. Boruch, M. Eccles, J. Grimshaw, Charles Weijer, M. Zwarenstein, A. Donner

Stephanie Dixon

OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of the 2004 extension of the CONSORT guidelines on the reporting and methodological quality of cluster randomised trials. DESIGN: Methodological review of 300 randomly sampled cluster randomised trials. Two reviewers independently abstracted 14 criteria related to quality of reporting and four methodological criteria specific to cluster randomised trials. We compared manuscripts published before CONSORT (2000-4) with those published after CONSORT (2005-8). We also investigated differences by journal impact factor, type of journal, and trial setting. DATA SOURCES: A validated Medline search strategy. Eligibility criteria for selecting studies Cluster randomised trials published in English language journals, …

Edith Stein’S Philosophy Of Community In Her Early Work And In Her Later Finite And Eternal Being: Martin Heidegger’S Impact, Antonio Calcagno

Antonio Calcagno

Edith Stein’s early phenomenological texts describe community as a special unity that is fully lived through in consciousness. In her later works, unity is described in more theological terms as participation in the communal fullness and wholeness of God or Being. Can these two accounts of community or human belonging be reconciled? I argue that consciousness can bring to the fore the meaning of community, thereby conditioning our lived-experience of community, but it can also, through Heideggerian questioning, uncover that which remains somewhat hidden from consciousness itself: its own ground or condition of possibility, namely, being—a being that is both …

Bugs For Sale: Legal And Ethical Proprieties Of The Market In Software Vulnerabilities, Taiwo Oriola

Taiwo Oriola

Software vulnerabilities are inherent errors or mistakes in software programming and designs, and arguably the weakest link in digital information architecture with high propensity for rendering information systems infrastructure susceptible to compromise and hacking. Given the increasing reliance of the global economy on digital platforms with concomitant imperatives for securing sensitive intelligence, business and personal data, the need for continual corrective patch of perennially recurring critical software bugs is at once urgent and sacrosanct. This has precipitated research and a thriving market in software vulnerabilities, an integral element of the burgeoning multi-million dollars information security industry that epitomizes the externalization …

Selectedworks Part Ii: Conducting A Compelling Selectedworks Demo, Ann Taylor

Ann Connolly