Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Better Than Before, Makia Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Better than Before is an experiential art installation that profiles the life of James Isreal, a Vietnam vet who shares a spiritual journey that is filled with self-discovery, introspection, and hope in the midst of war and abhorrent racism. His poignant retrospective follows his struggle to find peace in the midst of trauma and disease, providing life lessons that transcend the pangs of adversity and the unknown.

News Literacy, Sissel W. Mccarthy

Open Educational Resources

"The digital age has created the need for a new kind of literacy-a literacy that empowers news consumers to determine whether information is credible, reliable and truthful. This is not just a skill; it is a new core competency for the 21st century. So-called “fake news” is hard to spot and spreads easily, leading to disagreements over basic facts. The antidote to the growing challenges posed by this digital revolution is news literacy. This mini news literacy course includes two three-hour sessions that will teach anyone to become a more critical consumer of news. "

The News Literacy course package …

Urban Information Specialists And Interpreters: An Emerging Radical Vision Of Reference For The People, 1967–1973, Haruko Yamauchi

Publications and Research

In the post-War on Poverty years, certain quarters of the U.S. library profession expressed a growing desire to enable librarians to beome more relevant and responsive to low-income, primarily African American, urban communities. This article traces how ideas and trends shifted within library discourse over roughly a decade starting in the mid-1960s, and offers an overview of the urban librarian training programs that emerged in the early 1970s. The latter half of the article, based on archives of internal and external correspondence, funder reports, and other primary documents, examines in greater detail the case of three related projects that were …

One Staff, Two Branches: The Queens Borough Public Library And New York City's Fiscal Crisis Of The 1970s, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

During the fiscal crisis of the 1970s, New York City imposed deep budget cuts on the three library systems: the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library, and the Queens Borough Public Library. As the city cut budgets, the public demanded that libraries be kept open, and elected officials struggled to do both. The Queens Library’s staff was reduced from over 1,100 to barely 700, with branches open only two or three days a week, with one staff serving both. New buildings remained vacant because the library lacked funds to operate them. When the library proposed closing some branches, …

Comedian Hosts And The Demotic Turn, Kathleen Collins

Publications and Research

Podcasting is a showcase for what cultural studies scholar Graeme Turner coined “the demotic turn” or the increasing visibility of the "ordinary person" in the today’s media landscape. Collins argues that the emergence of a particular breed of podcasts – comedian-hosted interviews with celebrities – function in an “off-label” manner as a form of self-help or vicarious therapy. The emergence and rapid growth of this genre can attributed to three main factors: a confessional culture, the triumph of experience over expertise, and the democratization allowed by the form’s technology. She explores the link between emotional intimacy and comedy, and analyzes …

Religion On The Dance Floor: Afro-Dominican Music And Ritual From Altars To Clubs, Angelina M. Tallaj

Publications and Research

In this essay, I examine the current New York scene and the emerging discourses surrounding the recent visibility of Dominican Voodoo (Vudú) and its music. When Dominicans migrated, they brought with them these marginalized genres of music including the music of Vudú, and, since the 2000s, this music (palo) has moved from the religious arena to the popular music world, in turn changing the nature of the religious rituals. In New York City, Vudú ceremonies can now publicly feature drumming and possession and are practiced in commercial venues rather than in private homes and altar spaces. While this move of …

Cheikh Anta Diop’S ‘Two Cradle Theory,’ Racism And The Cultural Realities Of African Descended People In America, Karanja Keita Carroll

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Institutional Theory And The History Of District-Level School Reform: A Reintroduction, Judith R. Kafka

Publications and Research

In this chapter I make my case for the utility of institutionalism for historians of education, first by explaining institutional theory and how it has been applied to, and shaped by, the study of schooling, and then by applying new theoretical developments to district-level historical research using examples drawn from earlier chapters in this volume. Ultimately, institutional theory may help us to interrogate Tyack and Cuban’s notion of institutional change in schools, by elaborating on their construction of the change process through specific, embedded, settings, and by rethinking how we determine what “counts” as change in schools and districts.

Is It Morally Permissible To Have Children, Awinyandji W. Djebou

Theses

Having children is something that has always been considered morally good. Generations and generations of human beings have been raised with the idea that procreating is part of the natural processes of life. To have a child is often considered an important milestone in a person’s life most societies. In fact, it is expected of any well-rounded adult. However, in recent years, some philosophers have argued against the moral permissibility of having children. In this thesis I aim to end the debate on the morality of procreation. I will argue that it is morally permissible to have children, but only …

On The Relationship Between Economics And Ethics, Mark D. White

Publications and Research

Economics and ethics have been linked since the days of Adam Smith, but this connection became tenuous after the formalization of economic theory in the twentieth century, the success of which in academia, government, and business serves to insulate it from ethical critique. Nonetheless, a field of “economics and ethics” has developed to restore this connection, albeit in two directions with disparate methodological approaches: one applying mainstream economic theory, primarily based in utilitarian ethics, to topics of ethical concern, and the other incorporating alternate forms of ethics, such as deontology and virtue ethics, to enrich economic analysis.

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

The Dmz Responds, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Seo-Young Chu’s “The DMZ Responds” appeared in Telos 184 (Fall 2018), a special issue on Korea edited by Haerin Shin.

Evangelizing Neoliberalism Through Megachurches In Latin America And The United States, William O. Collazo

Dissertations and Theses

The most prominent and influential feature of worldwide Evangelicalism, is the megachurch. In Latin America megachurches have proliferated and grown in political influence when they first came into contact with neoliberalism during Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. As Latin America's poor first migrated out of rural areas into Latin American cities, then north, to the United States, they have brought with them their religion. Increasingly, this religion is Protestant, evangelical, and for many, it is Pentecostalism. Misunderstood by the early literature on Pentecostalism, is the strain of neoliberalism that has become infused in the religion's most powerful institution - the megachurch. …

Very Long Engagements: The Persistent Authority Of Bridewealth In A Post-Apartheid South African Community, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

This article examines the persistent authority of the customary practice for forming recognized marriages in many South African communities, centered on bridewealth and called “lobola.” Marriage rates have sharply fallen in South Africa, and many South Africans blame this on the difficulty of completing lobola amid intense economic strife. Using in-depth qualitative research from a village in KwaZulu-Natal, where lobola demands are the country’s highest and marriage rates its lowest, I argue that lobola’s authority survives because lay actors, and especially women, have innovated new repertoires of lobola behavior that allow them to pursue emerging needs and desires for marriage …

Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

As same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in a rapidly growing list of countries, the time has come to assess what this means for families and relationships on the ground. Many scholars have already begun to examine how marriage is helping some same-sex couples, but in this introduction I call for a broader and more critical research agenda. In particular, I argue that same-sex marriage crystallizes a key tension surrounding families and relationships in many contemporary societies. On the one hand, strict family norms are relaxing in many places, allowing more people to form more diverse types of caring …

The Greatest Bachelor Party On Earth?, Claire Stewart

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Writing Indigenous Identity In Herman Melville And Joseph Conrad's Polynesian And Malay Archipelago Novels, Catherine L. Black

Dissertations and Theses

The thesis of this paper is that cross-cultural writing can be done with the right methods of communication, such as engaging narrator and education—or simply sensitive, imaginative writing. Herman Melville and Joseph Conrad’s five books set in the Polynesian and Malay Archipelagos—Typee and Omoo and the Malay Trilogy (Almayer’s Folly, An Outcast of the Islands, and The Rescue)— are used as master models of how to write indigenous characters with rich characterization in pivotal roles, even circa 1846 and 1896. The unique perspective and technique by which they did this is explored, a technique and perspective not …

Resist: A Controversial Display And Reflections On The Academic Library’S Role In Promoting Discourse And Engagement, Stephanie Beene, Cindy Pierard

Urban Library Journal

Libraries engage communities in a variety of ways, including through exhibitions and displays. However, librarians may not always know how to promote critical discourse if controversy arises surrounding exhibits or displays. This article reflects on one academic library’s experience hosting a controversial display during a divisive political time for the library’s parent institution, its broader urban community, and the United States as a whole. The authors contextualize the display, created by a local art collective, against the backdrop of creative activism, and consider implications for library displays and exhibits within similar environments. Rather than retreating from controversy, libraries have an …

Geografía Abolicionista Y El Problema De La Inocencia, Ruth Wilson Gilmore

Publications and Research

Resumen:

En el presente artículo se analizan las geografías carcelarias en los Estados Unidos, desde el despliegue del capitalismo racial. La geógrafa afroamericana parte de la tesis de que las prisiones contemporáneas son extractivas, es decir, extraen personas y, cuando, en el mejor de los casos, no hacen parte de los altos índices de las muertes prematuras, las expulsan al mundo sin el derecho a ser ellas, dinámica que estimula la circulación rápida de flujos de dinero. Frente a esta topografía anuladora de la vida, la también activista afroamericana reflexiona sobre su experiencia en contra del complejo militar carcelario, el …

The Politics Of Twilights: Notes On The Semiotics Of Horizon Photography, Michael W. Raphael

Publications and Research

Visual sociology is crucial for exploring the indexical meanings that thick description cannot capture within a cultural setting. This paper explores how such meanings are created within a subset of the domain of photography. Using data gathered over several years, I constructed the semiotic code ‘horizon’ photographers use when ‘in the field’ for photographing periods of twilight. This code explains the relevance of subject matter to the photograph’s aesthetics. Specifically, I detail how ‘the horizon’ communicates the potential for the photographer to ‘capture’ the index of a symbol that later permits the photographer to culturally mark scenes with ‘light’. In …

Queer Solidarities: New Activisms Erupting At The Intersection Of Structural Precarity And Radical Misrecognition, Michelle Fine, María Elena Torre, David M. Frost, Allison L. Cabana

Publications and Research

This article investigates the relationship between exposure to structural injustice, experiences of social discrimination, psychological well being, physical health, and engagement in activist solidarities for a large, racially diverse and inclusive sample of 5,860 LGBTQ/Gender Expansive youth in the United States. Through a participatory action research design and a national survey created by an intergenerational research collective, the “What’s Your Issue?” survey data are used to explore the relationships between injustice, discrimination and activism; to develop an analysis of how race and gender affect young people’s vulnerabilities to State violence (in housing, schools and by the police), and their trajectories …

La Dialéctica, David Harvey

Publications and Research

Raymond Williams eligió el recurso de pensar ‘mundos posibles’ ficticios para abordar la complejidad de temas relativos al lugar, el espacio y el ambiente. ¿Sin embargo, será que este era un recurso necesario, o más bien una estrategia aleatoria suya para profundizar en el estudio de la teoría de la cultura? Empezaré en este capítulo por demostrar que la estrategia empleada por Williams no es necesaria en absoluto. Espero poder demostrar que la investigación materialista histórica, inducida por un entendimiento dialéctico, puede integrar los temas de lugar, espacio y ambiente (naturaleza) en la teoría social y en la teoría literaria. …

Evolution Of Western Library Catalogs: The Rising Expectations Of Users, Junli Diao

Publications and Research

This paper traces the historical development of library catalogs from primitive catalogs in ancient times to current next generational catalogs, which are summarized into three stages: the agricultural catalog stage, the industrial catalog stage and the information catalog stage. In particular, this paper focuses on the discussion of the rise of users’ expectations on library catalogs at different stages and gives emphasis to what impact they have created accordingly.

Συμβολική Βία Και Η Αναπαραγωγή Της Εξουσίας, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Enzo Traverso: Neoliberalism Is The Totalitarianism Of Our Times, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Black Detroit: The Worst Nightmare Of The American Establishment: Interview With Dan Georgakas, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Aspectos Formales De La Citación En El Discurso Científico Desde Una Perspectiva Diacrónica, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

La presente investigación hace una revisión histórica del tratamiento del elemento retórico-discursivo de la citación desde su primera aparición en el ámbito de la comunicación científica en la Philosophical Transaction de la Real Sociedad de Londres para el avance de la Ciencia Natural.

La Aculturación En La Comprensión Lectora De Los Estudiantes Universitarios: La Valoración En El Uso Polifónico De Las Citas, David Sánchez-Jiménez

Publications and Research

El acceso de los alumnos universitarios a los estudios de nivel superior implica un proceso de adaptación y aculturación que encuentra respuesta principalmente en la lectura y en la escritura académica. Esta transformación genera al principio altos grados de ansiedad en los sujetos, quienes en este nivel carecen aún de las coordenadas necesarias para la interpretación de textos científicos codificados en géneros discursivos que en muchas ocasiones han sido expresamente elaborados por escritores expertos para otros especialistas de la disciplina.

El cambio conceptual que se produce en el individuo que trata de integrarse en una nueva comunidad discursiva viene marcado …

Recent Futures: Classical Antiquity As Biopolitical Tool, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.