Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Discourse Of Evil: Speaking Terrorism To Silence, Galip Isen

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

That the impact of terrorism is equal to the reaction it elicits may be a truism, but one that deserves further probing as demonstrated by the way that reaction is put to use politically. Whichever of 150-strong definitions [1] is accepted, the consequential aspect of terrorism is ideational: the assault targets the concept and experience of normal in the lives and minds of ordinary people. Several writers argue that terrorism is generally inefficacious, strategically counterproductive and mostly unsuccessful as a method of attaining socio-political objectives [2]. However, overall public response to 11 September 2001 has been so profound …

The Electronic Polis: Media Democracy And The Invasion Of Iraq, Jeff Lewis, Kirsty Best

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The American-led victory in Baghdad was announced to the world with scenes of Iraqi citizens dragging down the statues of the deposed tyrant. Like the spectacle of World Cup Soccer or the Olympic Games, the image was transmitted live through the global media network to the billions of people who had been closely watching the three week invasion. President Bush shared in the celebration, announcing the dawn of a new age for freedom and democracy in the Middle East. This new democracy, the president proclaimed, would bring stability and prosperity to the region through the obliteration of terrorism …

Stuffed Animals And The Predicament Of Culture: Lost In The Bedroom Jungle, Walter Putnam

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

These preachings are from the gospel according to Reverend Billy, spiritual leader of the Church of Stop Shopping (qtd. in Kalb). For several years, Reverend Billy has been waging a guerilla war in Lower Manhattan against the likes of Starbucks and Disney, including agit-prop performances where he brandishes stuffed animals atop tall poles like skulls adorning savage palisades. His inversion and subversion of these multivalent emblems of consumer culture reinforce the anti-consumer message he delivers in our era of late capitalism and globalization. His conspicuous utilization of stuffed animals highlights the manner in which these ubiquitous and inconspicuous …

The Cia World Factbook: Marriage Of Archive And Empire?, Jack Shuler

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

A recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art cites the production of textiles as integral in establishing the power of the Mongol empire. In the accompanying notes to the exhibit, the museum curators write that, In the creation of luxury textiles and objects for the Mongol elite, Chinese artists developed a visual language that was an effective means of establishing their rule and continuous presence throughout the vast empire. These artists used certain motifs such as the dragon and phoenix, to create tangible representations of power. The mythical beasts integrated the ideas of cosmic force, earthly strength, …

Review Of Writing Back: Sylvia Plath And Cold War Politics, By Alan Clinton, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Of Mapping Tourism, By Stephen P. Hanna And Vincent J. Del Casino, Jr., Alexandra Ganser

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Homeland (In)Security : Roots And Displacement, From New York, To Toronto, To Salt Lake City, Marusya Bociurkiw

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

On September 11, 2001, broadcast and print media around the world narrated the destruction of New York City's World Trade Center and the deaths of thousands of its occupants. This paper will examine the ways in which television and its appendages (the telephone, the internet, the newspaper) operated to organize the discursive meanings of this traumatic event. I will propose that between September 11 and February 2002's Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, ideas about home, roots and rootedness (and their Others: foreignness, homelessness, nomadicism) operated as a discursive mapping of that which could otherwise not be …

Review Of Heredity, By Jenny Davidson, David C. Froemke

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

The End Of Science Fiction: When Technological Extrapolation Hits A Wall Across The Future, James John Bell

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Science fiction, as a genre of popular fiction, can trace its roots as far back as the 2nd century AD, where fantastical worlds were conjured up in order to comment on current beliefs. The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (1996) outlines a very specific ancestry:

[Science Fiction] is a descendant of the type of prose fiction sometimes referred to as Lucianic Satire (after Lucian of Samosata, a Greek writer of the 2nd century AD). Lucianic Satire -- also commonly known as Menippean Satire after an earlier writer, Menippus, whose works are now lost -- is a kind of …

Fixations/Solutions, Matthew Wolf-Meyer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

When the idea of this issue’s theme came to me, I was standing in a crowd of my peers, members of my generation, listening to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. As with all concerts, the performers left the stage to signal their eventual encore, and when they returned, they returned with the announcement that the U.S. military had begun its bombing, and formal invasion, of Iraq. Whether the idea for the issue had come to me prior to this moment, or as a result of it, I am unsure; I had, however, earlier decided that the summer issue we …

War If Necessary, But Not Necessarily War': The Canadian Paradox And 'Iraqi Freedom', Marc Ouellette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The Canadian refusal to join the U.S. led “coalition of the willing” does not mark the first time the nation has chosen not to follow its “traditional allies” into a foolish, ego-driven, imperialistic and vengeful conflict. Indeed, Canada’s record in these matters is flawless. Peter C. Newman points out that “we went along with most presidential global adventures, except the Vietnam War. The other significant time we parted company with the Yanks was over our drive to impose economic sanctions on apartheid South Africa, a policy we initiated and successfully defended despite American objections.” In fact, the objections …

Imperialism & Globalization: Lessons From Frank Herbert's Dune, Kevin Williams

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

These are the words of The Preacher (a character in Frank Herbert's Children of Dune who is simultaneously the metaphorical reincarnation of the fallen prophet, Muad'Dib, and the self-exiled Emperor, Paul Atreides) as he addresses the masses enslaved by their devotion to his messianic Empire. These words, culled from the pages of science fiction, are more than mere exposition from Herbert's narrative, they point toward several important conditions facing the political world today. These conditions concern certain failures of democracy and effects of globalization spawned, in part, by an intensification of imperialist expansion in the name of democracy.

Review Of How A Film Theory Got Lost And Other Mysteries In Cultural Studies, By Robert B. Ray, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

On T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, R. Stewart Varner

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Critical theory never died. It just assumed the façade of an academic discipline that is as spectacular as it is impotent. However, behind the façade there still lurk a few radical lunatics who, at times, may really be on to something. One such figure is Hakim Bey.

Review Of Time For Revolution, By Antonio Negri, John Conley

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Radiation Of Black Beauty: Perceptions Of Self-Esteem And Self-Efficacy Based On Facial Attractiveness And Skin-Tone Of African Americans, Solomon Luckett, Jr.

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The phenomenon of radiating beauty refers to the positive perception people have of an individual who is closely associated with a person of high facial attractiveness. This study examined the radiating beauty effect in the African American community. The historical perspective of skin tone and its role in intra-racial physical attraction among African Americans was explored. Specifically, this study investigated the possibility of the radiating beauty phenomenon in the African American community and the effects of attractiveness and skin tone. Thirty African American females were recruited for a validation study to establish empirically the degree of facial attractiveness and skin …

How Individuals Understand Depression: Attributions, Stigma, And Treatment Recommendations, Erin A. Pladsen

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study examined participants' beliefs/attributions about depression, their help seeking recommendations for depressed individuals, and the stigma associated with depression. Participants were asked to read a vignette that described a target person who is suffering from depression, and they were asked to complete various questionnaires based upon the vignette. Overall, the results indicated that individuals did not possess negative attitudes toward mental illness, that individuals more strongly recommended professional mental health assistance, and that individuals did not tend to stigmatize depressed individuals. Results did indicate that the label of depression and the gender of the target person affected provider type …

"War If Necessary, But Not Necessarily War”: The Canadian Paradox And “Iraqi Freedom", Marc A. Ouellette

English Faculty Publications

The Canadian refusal to join the U.S. led “coalition of the willing” does not mark the first time the nation has chosen not to follow its “traditional allies” into a foolish, ego-driven, imperialistic and vengeful conflict. Indeed, Canada’s record in these matters is flawless. Peter C. Newman points out that “we went along with most presidential global adventures, except the Vietnam War. The other significant time we parted company with the Yanks was over our drive to impose economic sanctions on apartheid South Africa, a policy we initiated and successfully defended despite American objections.” In fact, the objections to this …

Burn This Journal, Davin Heckman, Sarah Hildebrandt, R. Stewart Varner, Matthew Wolf-Meyer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Editor introduction]

Originally published in the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies (1.1), our manifesto appears for its first time online, in its entirety, here (earlier pieces of it appeared in earlier editorials). In so doing, we hope to continue the discussion that it grew out of in a public forum, and to ask our readership to participate as well -- a new manifesto should be written annually. Because Reconstruction is meant to be an organic enterprise, we ask readers to interrogate the efficacy and plausibility of the material herein: What must be changed, and what must be added/subtracted in order …

Paratextuality And Economic Disavowal In Dave Eggers' You Shall Know Our Velocity, Sarah Brouillette

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Dave Eggers' recent novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002), concerns two friends who suddenly stumble upon a lot of money, feel guilty about it, and travel around the world trying to give it away. Like almost all of what Eggers is involved in producing, Velocity is profoundly self-justifying. In fact, if we follow Gerard Genette's model and understand a work's paratexts to be all the physical and social texts that attend its existence, controlling its dissemination and reception, then Velocity thematizes paratextuality and practices it, as a text about Eggers' career and his overriding concern with the …

Text As Technology: Reading N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines, Davin Heckman

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

N. Katherine Hayles' Writing Machines is a beautiful little book. Thanks to the innovative spirit of MIT Press' Peter Lunenfeld, the graphic design prowess of Anne Burdick, the multimedia talents of Sean Donahue (creator of the book's website ), and the insights of N. Katherine Hayles, Writing Machines arrives as one of the first installations of the Mediawork Pamphlet Series, and offers one possible line of development to follow for any scholar concerned with the future of The Book.

Review Of Subject, Society, Culture, By Roy Boyne, Michael Ian Borer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Review Of Fantasies Of Fetishism: From Decadence To The Post-Human, By Amanda Fernbach, C. Jason Smith

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Mediums And Media: Review Of Ghostwriting Modernism, By Helen Sword, And Haunted Media, By Jeffrey Sconce, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Innovating Superheroes, Alvise Mattozzi

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Introduction]

Superhero comics have changed. They have passed through a Golden Age and Silver Age, they have been transformed, cancelled, revived, killed, deconstructed, reconstructed, revisited, etc. My aim is to account for part of these changes and show how superhero comics have been innovated. In order to track these changes I chose to compare different versions of a few DC Comics series, such as Doom Patrol, Swamp Thing, Shade, that had been cancelled and then revived and are known to have introduced relevant changes between the earliest and the subsequent versions.

Before tackling the series mentioned, I …

Time Wounds All Heels: Duncan, Ballet, And Bataille, Joanne Pearson

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Any study of the birth of modern dance draws upon the work of Isadora Duncan and for too long her dance has been placed in opposition to ballet. Even today the contemporary Duncan dancer reifies the image of Duncan as natural, harmonious, unique and rounded [1]. This opposition of free dance versus ballet presents a two-dimensional portrait of past representations of femininity. I aim to re-think Duncan's disdain for the pointe shoe and her belief that barefoot dancing would encourage a liberated movement that would in turn free woman from her disgraceful position in dance and …

Review Of Burger With The Works, Please! A Webjournal For Students Of The Humanities, Alexandra Ganser

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

The Effects Of Transformational And Transactional Leadership On Job Satisfaction Affective Commitment And Turnover Intentions Among Teleworkers, Janet L. Bryant

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study is among the first to examine the influence of leadership among teleworkers. Effects of transformational and transactional leadership on job satisfaction, affective commitment, and turnover intentions were examined in a secondary data analysis of 128 teleworkers. Hierarchical linear regression results support the influence of both forms of leadership on these outcomes, although an augmentation effect for transformational leadership was observed only for affective commitment and turnover intentions. Findings from moderated regression analyses indicate that the effect of transformational leadership degrades with increasing telework frequency. This study shows that leadership is important in telework arrangements, although the manner in …

Population Mobility High-Risk Environments And The Diffusion Of Hiv/Stds: A Community Based Study In Southwest China, Hongyun Fu

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Globally, population migration has been associated with the spread ofHIV/STDs in many countries. A similar trend has been observed in China from the very beginning of the HIV epidemic, but empirical research is very limited. Furthermore, the previous studies mainly focused on the micro impact of migration on individual migrant's risky behaviors. The impact of population mobility on the general population, especially on non-migrant residents, has been ignored. Using data collected from a specially designed community level survey, which was conducted in a province in the Southwest of China, this study examines the macro-level association between temporary migration and the …

It Does Take A Village To Raise A Child, Rebecca J. Boyd

Sociology & Criminal Justice Theses & Dissertations

Utilizing Cullen's (1994) Social Support Theory and Hunter's (1985) three dimensions of social life, this study is a quantitative, cross-sectional secondary data analysis designed to examine the relationship between institutional social support and rates of juvenile crime for counties and cities in Virginia for the year 2000. Resting on the contention that an inverse, significant relationship exists between measures of institutional support and rates of juvenile property and violent crime, this study examines types of support provided by the institutions of family, school, and the government. These measures of institutional support include 1) familial support: median income, marriage support; 2) …