Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Rhode Island's Greatest Natural Tragedy, Stephanie N. Blaine

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

The infamous hurricane of 1938 accelerated the ongoing transformation of Rhode Island’s way of life.

Spirits & Sacred Sites: A Study Of Beliefs On Unguja Island, Julie Bardenwerper

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The spiritual beliefs and mizimu, or sacred sites, of villagers were studied in Mangapwani, Makunduchi, and Muungoni on Unguja Island. Through semi-formal interviews, a better understanding of the prevalence and tenets of spiritual beliefs and mizimu use in present Swahili culture was gained. It was found that belief in the existence of spirits is very widespread still today, although these beliefs include many variances. Mizimu are generally being kept in tact for traditional purposes, but the spiritual belief behind them is fading. It was recommended that further study of this topic is done, particularly on mizimu, as it is an …

Shifting Focus: Redefining The Goals Of Sea Turtle Consumption And Protection In Bali, Audrey Jensen

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Many would say that the environment and human culture consists of an evolutionary process, complete with necessary adaptations to current situations and the availability of resources. However, religion is usually thought to be a constant, an entity that grounds the individual believer in a “truth” that transcends time. Ultimately, the boundary between culture and religion is especially hard to decipher, particularly in the daily rituals of the Balinese. While religious beliefs are often rooted in history, they too transform through inevitable reinterpretation. The following paper describes the tremendous environmental and cultural impact of the controversial turtle trade in Bali, specifically …

Weaving And Scheming: Adventures On Planet Mosuo, Melissa Judson

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This past month, not only did I learn to weave fabric, but also I learned to weave lies about why I couldn’t eat any more chicken feet, weave tales about American culture and weave clouds of smoke to mask my inability to drink copious amounts of alcohol, though nearly all of my handiwork was shoddily crafted. I studied weaving in a small Mosuo village about an hour outside of Yongning, on the borders of Sichuan and Yunnan provinces. Although the Chinese government classifies the Mosuo as a part of the Naxi minority people, they have many of their own distinctly …

Death Comes Alive; Technology And The Re‐Conception Of Death, Karen Cerulo, Janet M. Ruane

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Browse through your local bookstore, or glance at a nearby movie marquee. Skim the pages of your nightly newspaper or the listings in your television guide. American culture's current focus poses a surprise. The popular eye is centered on a topic more taboo than the steamiest sexual encounter, more solemn than the deepest economic depression, and more universal than the common cold. The current decade reveals a remarkable up- surge in our collective attention toward death. Indeed in the 1990s, Americans have become nearly obsessed with a world that lurks beyond life as we know it.

Inflammation And Infection Do Not Promote Arterial Aging And Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among Lean Horticulturalists, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Jung Ki Kim, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Background: Arterial aging is well characterized in industrial populations, but scantly described in populations with little access to modern medicine. Here we characterize health and aging among the Tsimane, Amazonian forager-horticulturalists with short life expectancy, high infectious loads and inflammation, but low adiposity and robust physical fitness. Inflammation has been implicated in all stages of arterial aging, atherogenesis and hypertension, and so we test whether greater inflammation associates with atherosclerosis and CVD risk. In contrast, moderate to vigorous daily activity, minimal obesity, and low fat intake predict minimal CVD risk among older Tsimane.

Methods and Findings: Peripheral arterial …

Australian Aboriginal Ethnometeorology And Seasonal Calendars, Philip A. Clarke

Aboriginal Policy Research Consortium International (APRCi)

This paper uses a cultural anthropological approach to investigate an indigenous Australian perspective on atmospheric phenomena and seasons, using data gained from historical records and ethnographic fieldwork. Aboriginal people believe that the forces driving the weather are derived from Creation Ancestors and spirits, asserting that short term changes are produced through ritual. By recognizing signals such as wind direction, rainfall, temperature change, celestial movements, animal behaviour and the flowering of plants, Aboriginal people are able to divide the year into seasons. Indigenous calendars vary widely across Australia and reflect annual changes within Aboriginal lifestyles.

A Bioeconomic Approach To Marriage And The Sexual Division Of Labor, Michael Gurven, Jeffrey Winking, Hillard Kaplan, Christopher Von Rueden, Lisa Mcallister

ESI Publications

Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other.We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marriage is still a favorable, efficient outcome under a wide range of conditions. This bioeconomic framework subsumes both cooperative and conflictive views on the sexual division of labor. We test hypotheses concerning marriage markets, …

Shake It: A Study Of Traditional Dance And Drumming In Tanzania With The African Traditional Dance Group, Megan Browning

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This study was conducted from April 11th 2009 to May 1st 2009 about Tanzanian traditional dance and drumming focusing specifically on the African Traditional Dance Group, ATDG, a well-established group in Arusha, Tanzania. The study aimed to gain perspectives on the role of traditional dance and drumming in Tanzania and how it is changing today in the face of westernization and globalization, and additionally to learn more about the personal histories of the artists in ATDG. Methods included participant observation, in the form of dance and drumming lessons and participation in group rehearsals, a semi-structured key informant interview, and semi-structured …

The Traditional Wolof Voice: Lessons From A Griot In Pout, Senegal, Lucy French

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This alternative project comprised of a three-week long, intensive study of traditional Wolof singing. I took twenty hours of voice lessons from a griot teacher in Pout, Senegal, with the intention of acquiring a rich knowledge of Wolof vocal music and the skills to perform for an audience. My Wolof teacher, Nar Diop, taught me seven songs by ear throughout our six classes together. In addition to perfecting, memorizing, and preparing for a final performance piece, I translated the lyrics of each song into English and French in order to analyze their content and investigate their origins and significance to …

L’Identité Dans La Musique Occitane : La Conservation De L’Art Pour Exprimer La Culture = Identity In Occitan Music : Expressions Of Culture Through The Preservation Of Art, Christina Lambert

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This project focused on how identity is expressed and preserved through Occitan music, and what exactly that identity means to whom that identity belongs. The researcher studied and listened to many different bands and artists, all of who had unique styles and sounds. While conducting research on the history of Occitania and of its music, the researcher interviewed several musicians and others who worked with the Occitan culture. These interviews and research led to a greater understanding of Occitania, and of the people who are fighting to keep it alive. By attending traditional dances, concerts, and book readings, the researcher …

An Oriental Christ: A Perfect Condition After The State Was God, Thomas Nathaniel Eaves

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Where do we begin with our understanding of the human composition of God, with humanity’s embracement of the existential? Humanity has rendered faith volatile and constant, a consequence, not flaw, merely of developed sentience. Yet, whether God or evolution has burdened humanity with this responsibility, faith and belief continue their inexplicable and unwearied existence. People, whether atheistic, agnostic, or faith bound, have proven the existence of an utterly human liability for irrationality, or certainly rational subscription. Emile Durkheim wrote of religion as purely existent within shared life, unsusceptible to segregation and compartmental comprehension. Max Weber considered religion as providing prescientific …

Remembering The Roots: Political Consciousness In The Quilombo Pitanga De Palmares In A Modernizing Society, Matthew Glenn

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Without a doubt, history affects greatly our modern realities. Yet, modernity proposes that we forget those things that make us different in order to be part of a society that is falsely seen as more advanced. One would expect that no one would understand better the need to remember history than quilombolas, people that live in communities with strong ties to their African ancestry. Whereas Brazilian culture makes it easy for the majority of citizens to forget their past by denying their racial background, an idea identified by academics and activists as “racial democracy”, quilombolas live in a reality that …

Blood Culture And The Problem Of Decadence, Jeffrey P. Cain

English Faculty Publications

This paper examines the commodification of hunting practices via the deterritorializing function of capitalism described by Deleuze and Guattari. It also studies counter trends-- predicted by or consistent with Deleuzean theory--that indicate a subtending authenticity displayed by certain hunting practices apparently resistant to commercial exploitation. "Blood culture" is my term for inauthentic hunting activity--a distinction drawn directly by Deleuze in his televised interviews with Claire Parnet. Aspects of "becoming-animal" and other transversal and cross-disciplinary flows of thought are also of course in play. As in some of my former work, I again argue for a Deleuzean cultural mechanics of the …

Recursive Use Of Gpr, Excavation, And Historical Maps At Gore Place, Waltham, Massachusetts, John M. Steinberg, Christa M. Beranek, J.N. Leith Smith

Andrew Fiske Memorial Center for Archaeological Research Publications

Gore Place is the early 19th-century house and estate of Massachusetts governor Christopher Gore and his wife Rebecca. The Gores were active in scientific agriculture and cultivated grains, fruits, and vegetables on the property. As part of the landscape restoration, the Gore Place Society wished to know the exact location and preservation status of Gore’s stable and greenhouse. To determine these, we recursively combined historic map georeferencing, ground penetrating radar (GPR) survey, and excavation. We used an initial GPR survey to guide our excavation, then using the GPR-slice images and data from the excavations, a series of historical maps were …

Beyond Corporatism And Liberalism: State And Civil Society In Cooperation In Nicaragua, Hannah Pallmeyer

Hispanic Studies Honors Projects

The Nicaraguan state has historically attempted to control Nicaraguan civil society using corporatist and liberal-democratic frameworks. This has created a difficult organizing environment for civil society organizations to struggle for social change. In this thesis, I argue that civil society organizations, operating in 2008 in a corporatist or liberal framework, were less effective in achieving national social change than organizations that worked cooperatively with the state, yet maintained some autonomy. This hypothesis is developed using the case study of three water rights organizations, and is further tested using the case of corporatist-structured Citizen Power Councils, created in 2007.

Im/Possible Lives: Gender, Class, Self-Fashioning, And Affinal Solidarity In Modern South Asia, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

Drawing on ethnographic research and employing a micro-historical approach that recognizes not only the transnational but also the culturally specific manifestations of modernity, this article centers on the efforts of a young woman to negotiate shifting and conflicting discourses about what a good life might consist of for a highly educated and high caste Hindu woman living at the margins of a nonetheless globalized world. Newly imaginable worlds in contemporary Mithila,South Asia, structure feeling and action in particularly gendered and classed ways, even as the capacity of individuals to actualize those worlds and the “modern” selves envisioned within them are …

Talking Tools, Suffering Servants, And Defecating Men: The Power Of Storytelling In Maithil Women’S Tales, Coralynn V. Davis

Faculty Journal Articles

What can we learn about the way that folk storytelling operates for tellers and audience members by examining the telling of stories by characters within such narratives? I examine Maithil women’s folktales in which stories of women’s suffering at the hands of other women are first suppressed and later overheard by men who have the power to alleviate such suffering. Maithil women are pitted against one another in their pursuit of security and resources in the context of patrilineal formations. The solidarities such women nonetheless form—in part through sharing stories and keeping each other’s secrets—serve to mitigate their suffering and …

Dream Palaces Of Law: Western Constructions Of The Muslim Legal World, Haider Ala Hamoudi

Articles

Western distortions of the Muslim East nearly always take the same form, irrespective of who in the West is doing the distorting. One common theme can be generally gleaned from any projections of the Muslim East in the West, in any Western country, among nearly every community, including, and perhaps especially, our own academic community. This is the perception of the near ubiquitous role of Islam and, more germane to my remarks, Islamic law, of a historic, medieval kind, in governing the legal order of Muslim states, including Iraq, in a manner that can be entirely distorting. In these brief …