Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Agency In The Subaltern Encounter Of Evil: Subverting The Dominant And Appropriating The Indigenous, James Ponniah

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

This essay focuses on subaltern encounter of evil that occurred in two different religious orbits, namely, Hinduism and Christianity in India. The Hindu phenomenon to be studied is Ayya Vaḻi1 (henceforth, AV) founded by Ayya Vaikundar (1809-1851) and the Christian phenomenon, Bible Mission (henceforth, BM) established by Devadas Ayyagaru (1840-1960). While attempts have been made earlier in the writings of Chad Bauman, Zoe Sherinian, Eleanor Zeliott, Sathianathan Clarke and G.Patick2 to study the relation between religion and subaltern agency in India, this work has a different focus in that it employs the idea of subaltern agency to discuss the parallel …

Practice And The Comparative Study Of Mysticism: The Yoga Sūtra And The Cloud Of Unknowing, Glenn Young

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

In his entry for the term “mysticism” in the updated edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion, Peter Moore writes that “the varieties of mystical practice tend to receive less scholarly attention than the varieties of experience or doctrine.”1 Bernard McGinn similarly claims that many studies of mysticism “so emphasize the moment of mystical contact . . . that they neglect the study of the fullness of the via mystica, particularly the ascetical and moral preparation for such contact.”2 Following from suggestions such as these, this article will do a comparative reading of two mystical texts: the Yoga Sūtra, a third-century …

Book Review: Re-Imagining South Asian Religions: Essays In Honour Of Professors Harold G. Coward And Ronald W. Neufeldt, Bob Robinson

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Re-imagining South Asian Religions: Essays in Honour of Professors Harold G. Coward and Ronald W. Neufeldt. (Numen Book Series: Studies in the History of Religions, volume 141.) Edited by Pashaura Singh and Michael Hawley. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013, xxv + 302 pp.

Book Review: Sacred Matters: Material Religion In South Asian Traditions, Lloyd W. Pflueger

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Sacred Matters: Material Religion in South Asian Traditions. Edited by Tracy Pintchman and Corinne G. Dempsey. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2015, xi + 221 pp.

Book Review: Meeting Of Opposites? Hindus And Christians In The West, Francis X. Clooney Sj

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Meeting of Opposites? Hindus and Christians in the West. Andrew Wingate. Eugene, Oregon: Cascade Books, 2015, x + 216 pp.

Book Review: Indian Thought And Western Theism: The VedāNta Of RāMāNuja, Sucharita Adluri

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Indian Thought and Western Theism: the Vedānta of Rāmānuja. Martin Ganeri. London: Routledge, 2015, x + 176 pp.

Book Review:Divine Self, Human Self: The Philosophy Of Being In Two Gītā Commentaries, Ankur Barua

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Divine Self, Human Self: The Philosophy of Being in Two Gītā Commentaries. Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad. NY and London: Bloomsbury, 2013, x + 148pp.

Book Review: Modern Hindu Personalism: The History, Life And Thought Of BhaktisiddhāNta Sarasvatī, Michael Mclaughlin

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Modern Hindu Personalism: The History, Life and Thought of Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī. Ferdinando Sardella. Oxford University Press, 2013, xv + 342 pp.

Book Review: Ecclesial Identities In A Multi-Faith Context: Jesus Truth-Gatherings (Yeshu Satsangs) Among Hindus And Sikhs In Northwest India, Nadya Pohran

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of Ecclesial Identities in a Multi-Faith Context: Jesus Truth-Gatherings (Yeshu Satsangs) among Hindus and Sikhs in Northwest India. Darren Todd Duerksen. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2015, xxiii + 292 pp.

Briefly Noted: God’S Other Children: Personal Encounters With Faith, Love, And Holiness In Sacred India, Kerry San Chirico

Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies

Book Review of God’s Other Children: Personal Encounters with Faith, Love, and Holiness in Sacred India. By Bradley Malkovsky. New York: Harper Collins, 2013, xiii + 289 pp.

Healthcare Access In Women’S Prisons: An Intersectional Perspective, Megan R. Bray

Undergraduate Research Posters

This project will be identifying the key factors that contribute to the significant lack of health care in prisons in the U.S., specifically in women’s correctional facilities. I will be lending my focus to disparities in mental health, HIV/AIDs care, reproductive health, trans health, and physical health issues among women who are either currently incarcerated or those who have completed their sentences and are at higher risk for re-entry after attempting re-integration. There is a lack of care, access, and proper treatment for women inmates in U.S. prisons and reform is needed. I foresee the best possible way to accomplish …

Fish Pain: A Painful Topic, Carl Safina

Animal Sentience

If fish cannot feel pain, why do stingrays have purely defensive tail spines that deliver venom? Stingrays’ ancestral predators are fish. And why do many fishes possess defensive fin spines, some also with venom that produces pain in humans? These things did not evolve just in case sentient humans would evolve millions of years later and then invent scuba. If fish react purely unconsciously to “noxious” stimuli, why aren’t sharp jabbing spines enough? Why also stinging venom?

How Welfare Biology And Commonsense May Help To Reduce Animal Suffering, Yew-Kwang Ng

Animal Sentience

Welfare biology is the study of the welfare of living things. Welfare is net happiness (enjoyment minus suffering). Since this necessarily involves feelings, Dawkins (2014) has suggested that animal welfare science may face a paradox, because feelings are very difficult to study. The following paper provides an explanation for how welfare biology could help to reduce this paradox by answering some difficult questions regarding animal welfare. Simple means based on commonsense could reduce animal suffering enormously at low or even negative costs to humans. Ways to increase the influence of animal welfare advocates are also discussed, focusing initially on farmed …

Don't Let The World Rot: Anarchism, Hardcore Music, And Counterculture, Pearson Bolt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hardcore music is intrinsically anarchistic. The hardcore music scene represents a radical departure from contemporary society. Rejecting the materialism, militarism, and hedonism of the mainstream music scene—and, by extension, modern culture—hardcore music presents an alternative lifestyle rooted in solidarity, equality, and liberty. Indeed, the culture of the hardcore scene approaches a transitive, nomadic model of an anarchistic commune built on resistance as a way of life. In this study, I identified the ways music and lyrics craft attitudes and environments for revolt and rebellion, cultivating critical thinking and disobedience in equal measures. In order to understand the hardcore community, I …

Joining The "Big Leagues": Politics, Race, And The Pursuit Of Nba Franchises In Miami And Orlando, 1982-1987, Garrett Hillyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the formation of two National Basketball Association (NBA) franchises—the Miami Heat and the Orlando Magic—and the efforts of groups representing both cities to procure those franchises between 1982 and 1987. Drawing primarily from discourse found in local newspapers, this thesis serves as a case study of the dual nature of sport to both unite and divide communities. While proponents of the NBA in Miami and Orlando preached the social, cultural, and economic benefits of sport, they ignored the ways in which the pursuit of sport divided local governments and perpetuated historic hostility toward African-American residents in each …

The Impact Of Voluntary Prekindergarten On Kindergarten Reading Readiness In A Large Suburban School District In 2012-2014, Brandon Hanshaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether the effects of participation in the Florida Voluntary Prekindergarten Program are sustained in kindergarten reading readiness for those who participated in the research school district VPK, those who participated in another provider VPK, and compared to those who did not participate in VPK. Select stakeholder perceptions were also gathered and analyzed, to include research school district parents of VPK participants, research school district VPK instructors, and research school district administrators. Academic effects were analyzed for VPK participants and non-VPK participants in 2012-2013 within their kindergarten 2013-2014 school year using the FAIR-K …

The Weight Of Words: Collecting And Visualizing Data From Twitter, Daniel Mcswain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Weight of Words is a web-based artwork designed to capture snapshots of Twitter discussions concerning the most popular topics of the day. The growth of social media in recent years has led to a sharp increase in thought and opinion sharing among the vocal population on the Internet. Twitter's use of trending topics allows users to be aware, and be a part of fun or silly stories as well as important news headlines and social movements. The Weight of Words is an exploration into using Twitter's always changing landscape of conversation to generate graphic visualizations based on the most …

Nightgaze: A Microbudget Visual Mixtape, Maillim Santiago

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nightgaze is a feature length visual mixtape created by May Santiago to fulfill the Masters of Fine Arts program at UCF. The mixtape is a study of autobigraphical depression in metaphorical visual tracks. Originally conceived as an experimental narrative, it has evolved into a form of essayistic distance within a narrative framework with experimental deviations. This thesis tracks the project from its original conception, through the pre-production, production, and post-production processes. It also formulates a plan for marketing and distributing the project.

Elizabeth Tudor: Her Youth, Education, And The Development Of The Legend Of The Virgin Queen, Katrina Santi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Elizabeth Tudor, the Virgin Queen, has received extensive attention from historians, especially since the advent of gender studies in the last forty years or so. Historical studies, movies, and television shows present Queen Elizabeth I as a remarkable character with legendary skills as a ruler despite her gender and the era in which she ruled. None of these studies delve into Elizabeth's childhood in an attempt to address how her experiences as a child and her education allowed her to establish her power early on in her reign. By looking at her childhood and education, this study shows that her …

Comrades In Arms?: Russian & Muslim Soldiers In The Red Army During World War Ii, Daniel Bradfield

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the perceptions of Muslims soldiers regarding their military service during World War II. To thoroughly analyze Muslim soldiers' attitudes, the thesis explores the total experience of Muslim military service through the Soviet Union's and Red Army's policies toward Muslims and how Russian soldiers viewed their Muslim counterparts. To achieve this, the thesis summarized current scholarship on Soviet and Red Army policies toward Muslims. The thesis analyzed the oral histories and written accounts of Muslim soldiers and Russian soldiers to understand the perceptions of Russians and Muslim soldiers. A hierarchy of cultural backwardness underlined Soviet policies in …

Cold Snap, Jonathan Phin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cold Snap is a collection of short stories that details the breaking down of self by those closest to us and the rebuilding process necessary to continue on in this diverse world. The sometimes autobiographical short stories attempt to explore the different stages of psychological and/or physical abuse and their aftermaths. Three short stories revolve around a singular family and include themes of cultural division, LGBT coming-of-age, neglect, and acceptance. The other short stories focus on themes including but not limited to self-worth, fear, desire, and survival. All characters revolve around the Buddhist idea that to want is to suffer …

By Book And School: The Politics Of Educational Reform In France And Algeria During The Early Third Republic, Michael Brooks

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the era of New Imperialism, the newly-formed French Third Republic continued France's civilizing mission both in France and in Algeria. Founded on a series of reforms, republican leaders and educational experts judged primary level education taught in the French language to be the most effective means of uniting a linguistically and culturally diverse population in the metropole. These republican values, based on revolutionary tenet of universality, would help France to sustain a republican regime, would thwart attempts to reestablish monarchical rule, and would teach future French citizens what it meant to be politically active. At the same time, another …

The Role Of Tactical Nuclear Weapons In American China Policy: 1950-1963, James Poppino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study demonstrates that tactical nuclear weapons occupied a central and essential role in US military policy for confronting the Peoples Republic of China between 1950 and 1963. Historians seldom look at tactical nuclear weapons as a separate and distinct component of American foreign policy and generally place these weapons as a subset of a strategic doctrine directed at the Soviet Union. When examined as a separate component of military policy, however, tactical nuclear weapons proved to be indispensable tools for the American leadership to deal with the complex relationship between the United States, the People's Republic of China and …

Though I Know The River Is Dry, Victoria Campbell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though I Know the River is Dry is a place-oriented collection of short fiction. The included stories follow female protagonists as they struggle with identity, relationships, and place in the world. The women in these stories frequently grapple with the fear of being loved in the wrong way, often unearthing a deeper examination of what it means to be tethered to a person or a place, along with the ramifications of these ties. All tangentially related to the island of Martha's Vineyard, place serves as a grounding element in this collection, as well as an entity with which the women …

Kidron Road And Other Stories, Jason Molohon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kidron Road and Other Stories is a collection of fiction that ranges from the soberly tragic to the magically real. The characters in each selection are molded by their choices, the choices of others, and the cruel whims of fate. I am fascinated by the way fatalism and free will intersect in the human experience. Therefore, my work often explores the paradoxical way lives are molded by past decisions while, at the same time, those decisions seem determined by outside forces.

周作人與五十年代香港散文, Cheuk Yin Tsang

Lingnan Theses

周作人是現代中文散文寫作範式的一大奠基者，亦是五四時期重要的文學理論家，不少學者早已指出周作人「開風氣之先」，是研究現代中國散文時不可迴避的散文大家。五十年代的周作人因政治上的原因，在中國只剩狹小的寫作與發表空間，香港因處於特殊位置，在戰時或戰後一直有能力容納不同立場的聲音並存，加上香港文化人的支持，成為周作人晚年發表作品的重要場域。

本論文嘗試以「周作人式散文」為切入點，提出一個討論五十年代香港散文的框架，找出周作人式散文在五十年代香港的發展方向，以曹聚仁和葉靈鳳為中心，研究香港散文作家對周作人風格的傳承與轉化。通過歸納整理現有的周作人研究，從周作人式散文的美學特色及周作人式散文中的知識份子視野兩大方向建立「周作人式散文」一詞的內涵。周作人重視散文中的博識和理智，展示因知識而來的距離和深度，追求文章的趣味、澀味和簡單味，並以「十字街頭的塔」為知識份子寫作立場，將散文作家的視角轉向日常生活中的美。他引介民俗學的觀點，表現對地方、博物、風土與山水之關懷，並在其散文中展示其廣闊的跨文化視野。

通過調研現存的五十年代報章、文學期刊與書刊等第一手資料，描畫五十年代香港散文的鳥瞰圖；並試圖找出當中周作人式散文在香港的最重要兩位書寫者：曹聚仁與葉靈鳳在五十年代當中的位置。論文並將集中討論此兩位香港作家，探索兩位作家如何承接與開展周作人式散文，書寫出現當代文學中獨特的香港散文面貌。在周作人研究領域下周作人晚年的寫作是一研究焦點；曹聚仁說服周氏寫作回憶錄，及後更在種種政治壓力下，促成了《知堂回想錄》的出版，曹亦影響了此部周氏晚年力作的寫作策略，兩者的互動是周作人研究領域中的重要一頁。

Defining Community Art : Theoretical And Practical Reconstruction, Kei Shun, Samson Wong

Lingnan Theses

This research investigates the area of practice commonly known as community art, defined to be where a gathering of people participates in facilitated collaborative art making aimed to be increasing their autonomy in generating artistic and social satisfaction and enrichment. This definition is a result of integrating existing research, literature, interviews with practitioners and analyses of their work. It is an interdisciplinary research conducted through a grounded methodology where data from practitioners and literature mutually inform to yield insights into a seemingly unstructured practice.

Seven interviewees were chosen to represent a coherent and recognized body of practice. They are practicing …

Embodying And Modeling Healthy Self-Care In Teacher Education, Cathy E. Freytag

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

To care for others well, teachers must care for themselves in healthy and responsive ways. The “love mandate” in Scripture, says that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22: 37-39). Far too often, Christians (particularly those in serving professions) fail to properly understand and enact healthy, God-honoring care for themselves. When teacher educators fail to model responsive self-care, they unwittingly perpetuate unhealthy messages about what it means to care well for others, and communicate to teacher candidates that doing good supersedes being well. In …

Book Review: The Ethics Of Attention In An Age Of Distraction: Why You Need To Get Out Of Your Own Head, Brian Dijkema

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

The World Beyond Your Head: On Becoming an Individual in an Age of Distraction by Matthew Crawford. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 2015.

Most of us think of distraction as a mere annoyance— a mild humming in the background while you work, a fly landing on your book while you read. We do not usually think of it carrying the weight of a serious moral problem. In his new book, The World Beyond Your Head, Matthew Crawford argues that our inability to pay attention does carry such moral weight, and he argues this precisely because it dissolves our individuality and …

Comparative Study Of Ethics In Librarianship And The Bible, Japheth Abdulazeez Yaya

The Christian Librarian

This paper is a comparative study that discusses ethical issues in librarianship and the Bible. Such issues include: Laws in librarianship vs. laws in the Bible; censorship in librarianship vs. censorship in the Bible; Bible teachings on access to information and access to information in librarianship; purification (i.e., book binding), conservation and preservation practices in the library and in the Bible; weeding of library collections and weeding practices in the Bible; privacy and confidentiality in the library and in the Bible; orderliness of the library collections and the Bible; consortium building of library collections and in the Bible; and consequences …