Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Review: New York City Public Schools From Brownsville To Bloomberg, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

Review of Heather Lewis's 2015 book, New York City Public Schools from Brownsville to Bloomberg, which explores the historical and educational policy context of the struggle for community control of the New York City public schools from the 1960s to 2000, the year Mayor Michael Bloomberg assumed control over the city's public school system.

Feminism, Psychology And Social Justice: A Possible Meeting? An Interview With Michelle Fine, Karla Galvão Adrião

Publications and Research

Michelle Fine is a Feminist Psychologist Researcher and has contributed strongly in the past two decades to the Qualitative and Participatory Methodologies field, with special attention to Critical-Participatory-Action-Research (CPAR). Her research in Social Psychology and Education puts into question the positions of power and privilege, concepts such as social justice/injustice, the intersectional reading of gender, class, race, generation, and the notion of solidarity.

Primitive At The Plantation's Edge, Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Publications and Research

There comes a time when the only thing that one can do is admit defeat. Standing at the tail end of a Black Studies movement established as part of the articulation of anti-segregationist, anti-colonialist African and African American political and cultural insurgencies, one is made painfully aware of a sort of necessary and inevitable social and professional marginalization structuring the everyday existence of the so-called black scholar. The broadly imagined ethical outlines of even the most valued projects of black intellectualism continue as ornamental, overly moralistic, never quite fully valid aspects of the industry / government / education complex that …

Una Disciplina De Guerra: Henríquez Ureña Y El Latinoamericanismo, Fernando Degiovanni

Publications and Research

Este trabajo examina el lugar de Pedro Henríquez Ureña en la construcción del campo académico del Latinoamericanismo a partir de la consideración de las variables que intervinieron en su nombramiento como catedrático Norton de la Universidad de Harvard a comienzos de la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El análisis de fuentes nunca antes exploradas por la crítica –conferencias universitarias, discursos públicos, cobertura periodística y correspondencia personal– ofrece un nuevo punto de vista sobre el rol de Henríquez Ureña en la consolidación de la política del Buen Vecino. Palabras clave: Latinoamericanismo, Hispanismo, industrias culturales, derechos civiles, democracia, Pedro Henríquez Ureña.

Voys Lessons: Whirling Words In Chaucer’S “House Of Rumour", Nicola Blake

Publications and Research

“Voys Lessons: Whirling Words in Chaucer’s ‘House of Rumour’” examines the lability of sound and its use in the dissemination, transposition, and authorship of stories within The House of Fame, a text exemplifying the mobility and flexibility of misused or unhinged words, as expressed through sound as opposed to text. By engaging the use and interpretation of sound in contrast to words, this new reading concentrates on the idea of narrative as material artifact with limited stasis. Geffrey’s pseudo-authorship, through his voyeuristic stance, engages the textuality of sounds and shows the related subtlety, elasticity, and democratic sociohistorical aspect of …

Music Education, Aesthetics, And The Measure Of Academic Achievement, Karl Madden, David Orenstein, Alexei Oulanov, Yelena Novitskaya, Ida Bazan, Thomas Ostrowski, Min Hyung Ahn

Publications and Research

Grades and test scores are the traditional measurement of academic achievement. Quantitative improvements on standardized scores in Math/Science/Language are highly-coveted outcomes for meeting accreditation standards required for institutional program funding. Music and the Fine Arts, difficult to assess by traditional academic achievement measurement, and often devalued as so-called “luxury” subjects, struggle for necessary funding. Showing measureable collateral value to other academic subjects—such as math—in order to justify music program funding is dubious. To objectify the purpose of music education in terms of its influence on other subjects is to overlook aesthetic value. The scholarly literature recognizes an historical tendency to …

On The Origin And Future Of Poetry: Notes Towards An Investigation, Carlos Aguasaco

Publications and Research

An exploration on the historical and material conditions that allowed the emergence of metaphors and poetry alongside language. This article analyzes the historical relation between poetry and technology across history. It discusses the so-called ontological crisis of poetry and opens the conversation on its future.

Wsq: Solidary Editor's Note, Cynthia Chris, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This Editor's Note introduces the WSQ issue "Solidarity," co-edited by Saadia Toor and Shefali Chandra, which explores the urgent need for simultaneous action in multiple political registers.

"Epidermic" And Visceral Works: Lygia Pape And Anna Maria Maiolino, Claudia Calirman

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

The Regional North Indian Popular Music Industry In 2014: From Cassette Culture To Cyberculture, Peter L. Manuel

Publications and Research

This article explores the current state of the regional vernacular popular music industry in North India, assessing the changes that have occurred since around 2000 with the advent of digital technologies, including DVD format, and especially the Internet, cellphones and ‘pen-drives’. It provides a cursory overview of the regional music scene as a whole, and then focuses, as a case study, on a particular genre, namely the languriya songs of the Braj region, south of Delhi. It discusses how commercial music production is adapting, or failing to adapt, to recent technological developments, and it notes the vigorous and persistent flowering …

Utopias Misplaced: The Cost Of Outsourcing Dystopian Poetics To North Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This is a slightly revised version of the text of a talk that I (Seo-Young Chu) gave as part of the Fall 2014 Franke Lectures in the Humanities at Yale University. I'm sharing the text here to make the lecture more accessible. Topics include: North Korea/the DPRK, the "uncanny body politic," the uncanny valley, "dystopian poetics," what it means to outsource dystopian poetics, the intersection of aesthetics and politics. Authors/artists mentioned include: Thomas Hobbes, Mary Shelley, David Mitchell, Marjane Satrapi, Song Byeok, Sun Mu, Masahiro Mori, Andy Warhol. The talk also discusses the James Bond film Die Another Day.

In What Senses Are Free Spirits Free?, Christa Davis Acampora

Publications and Research

My broadest claim in this article is, unsurprisingly, that there are multiple senses of freedom associated with the freedom of the free spirit. These include both positive and negative senses – that is, when describing how free spirits are free, Nietzsche sometimes characterizes this as freedom to do something, and sometimes as freedom from certain kinds of constraints. In this article, I do not aim to provide an exhaustive catalogue of the different senses invoked in Nietzsche’s ‘free spirit’ texts. Instead, I wish to highlight some particular senses, including some that are less frequently discussed in the scholarly literature and …

"Gent De Forca I De Presó": Jueus I Xuetes Als Dietaris De Joan Estelrich, Antoni Pizà

Publications and Research

Els Dietaris de Joan Estelrich, publicats per Quaderns Crema, aporten una informació substantiva sobre el personatge i la seva circumstància. Per exemple, les nombroses referències que hi fa als jueus i als xuetes mallorquins, reveladores dels prejudicis de l'època.

The Ideological And Organizational Origins Of The United Federation Of Teachers' Opposition To The Community Control Movement In The New York City Public Schools, 1960-1968, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

This article explores the origins and ideological practice of public school teacher unionism as it was articulated and revealed in New York City before and during the epochal strike against an experiment in community control of neighborhood schools undertaken by the United Federation of Teachers in the fall of 1968 that closed down the city’s massive public school system for weeks and put almost 1 million school children in the street. How and why did unionized New York City public school teachers support the particular kind of trade unionism that the UFT and its president, Albert Shanker, embodied and practiced …

Mapping The Methods Of Composition/Rhetoric Dissertations: A “Landscape Plotted And Pieced”, Benjamin M. Miller

Publications and Research

What methods do graduate students take up for their dissertation projects? This article shares findings from distant reading of 2,711 abstracts, suggesting that humanist approaches predominate within the Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition, but not without some methodological pluralism. A large number of studies outside the consortium are also considered.

Can Culture Justify Infant Circumcision?, Eldar Sarajlic

Publications and Research

The paper addresses arguments in the recent philosophical and bioethical literature claiming that social and cultural benefits can justify non-therapeutic male infant circumcision. It rejects these claims by referring to the open future argument, according to which infant circumcision is morally unjustifiable because it violates the child’s right to an open future. The paper also addresses an important objection to the open future argument and examines the strength of the objection to refute the application of the argument to the circumcision case.

The Observer In The Picture: Surface And Depth In A Passage From Proust, Noam Scheindlin

Publications and Research

In the orthodox version of externally-narrated fiction, the questions, “who speaks,” “who writes,” and “who sees,” when directed toward the narrator or narrating agency, are non-productive ones from the perspective of the world that is narrated. To ask these questions would require moving from the world of the story and into the world of the author; or, at the very least, one would be required to make use of a critical construct such as that of the “implied author,” in order to transgress—albeit in fiction—the fictional frame.¹ The purely external narrator speaks or writes from a perspective that is …

Feminism, The Left, And Postwar Literary Culture By Kathlene Mcdonald (Review), Danica Savonick

Publications and Research

Reviews the book Feminism, the Left, and Postwar Literary Culture by Kathlene McDonald,University of Mississippi Press, 2012.

Culinary Star Wars: A Review Of The Cultivation Of Taste: Chefs And The Organization Of Fine Dining By Christel Lane, Claire Stewart

Publications and Research

The Cultivation of Taste: Chefs and the Organization of Fine Dining researches the world of Michelin-starred restaurants and the chefs who run them. Author Christel Lane conducts a comparative study of restaurants in Britain and Germany, and applies her findings in an effort to examine the broader issue of social and economic differences in these two societies, placing chefs in the center of this intriguing universe. Book review by Claire Stewart.

Pre-Raphaelites: The Original Artisanal Hipsters, Flora Armetta

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Opening Remarks To Outing Lorraine At The Schomburg Center, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This article is an edit of the opening remarks for the event held on May 22nd, 2014 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture as part of the In The Life Series supplying Black LGBT programming coordinated by Steven Fullwood. Outing Lorraine included panelists: Alexis DeVeaux, Joi Gresham, and Steven Fullwood and was moderated by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz. Opening remarks provide a biographical description of Lorraine Hansberry's life, prepare the audience for a conversation on the implications for "outing" a black iconic figure, details the purpose for use of primary and secondary sources when, and provides a bibliography for …

Digital Humanities, Matthew K. Gold

Publications and Research

Published in The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media and Textuality, this chapter takes stock of the field of digital humanities as it existed in 2014.

Something New Under The Sun: Episode 4, Marleen S. Barr

Publications and Research

This is the introduction to Marleen S. Barr's guest edited issue of DELETION: THE OPEN ACCESS ONLINE FORUM IN SCIENCE FICTION STUDIES. The issue is called "Episode 4: The New! The Now! The Fantastic!"

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Coop Board's Borg Queen: A Sf/Memoir, Marleen S. Barr

Publications and Research

This is a short story.

“Documenting The Untold Stories Of Feminist Activists At Welfare Rights Initiative: A Digital Oral History Archive Project.”, Cynthia Tobar

Publications and Research

This chapter recounts the creation of a digital oral history archive documenting the Welfare Rights Initiative (WRI), a grassroots student activist and community leadership training organization located at Hunter College. The author examines, through these oral history interviews, social movement activity at the level of a grassroots organization as exemplified by WRI, which was developed to aid student welfare recipients to become agents of social change and actively involve them with policymaking. The project depicts the experiences of members in this feminist grassroots organization and provides us with new insights to the origins of advocacy, documenting the singular historical importance …

The Palate Of Power: Americans, Food And The Philippines After The Spanish-American War, Megan J. Elias

Publications and Research

In 1898, Spain ceded political control of the Philippine Islands to the United States. Although armed resistance by Filipinos did not officially end until 1902, the U.S. began conducting a study of the Islands in 1900 to determine whether they were ready for democratic self-rule and eventually determined that they were not. Food played an important role in Americans’ evaluation of the Philippines’ modernity and readiness for independence. This article examines the ways in which food was part of what Paul Kramer calls ‘fiesta politics,’ the displays of civilization that both Filipinos and Americans put on for each other as …

Engaging With Research And Resources In Music History Courses, Jennifer Oates

Publications and Research

With the ever-expanding sea of resources available to students today, it is now more important than ever to teach students how to navigate, assess, and interpret resources. Given the ease of access to information, students tend to seek out the path of least resistance, most often a Google search and/or Wikipedia. Their unfamiliarity with print resources, such as thematic catalogues, means they are missing out on significant music scholarship that is not available online or through Google. Today’s students have grown up searching the internet. The single-search approach of a web search leaves many students confused by terms like …

El Pasado Lingüístico Colonial Y Las Lenguas De Instrucción En La Educación Filipina, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Turismo, Nudistas, Y Hippies En Machu Picchu, Mark Rice

Publications and Research

Este ensayo enfatiza que el fenómeno de “turismo del hippie” –mejor dicho, de “turismo contracultural” – en el Cusco no es nuevo. Y también nos ayuda a entender mejor los efectos no previstos de presentar Machu Picchu al mercado internacional turístico como un sitio de lo exótico y la aventura.

Engaging Academics And Reimagining Scholarly Communication For The Public Good: A Report, Jessie Daniels, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

JustPublics@365 began as a discussion about how an interdisciplinary group of scholars at the Graduate Center, CUNY (located at 365 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan) might be able to bring their work together to foster greater social justice by sharing it in the public sphere.

We live in an era in which inequality is rampant. Media reports on inequality often gain little traction in a 24-hour news cycle dominated by the trivial. Activists work to address inequality in a myriad of ways, online and on the ground, but often lack connections to research or media that could further their cause. Key …