Communication Commons^™

Comparative Literature And Latin American Studies: From Disarticulation To Dialogue, Sophia A. Mcclennen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Comparative Literature and Latin American Studies: From Disarticulation to Dialogue," Sophia A. McClennen surveys the profound changes that characterize Latin American cultural studies today. McClennen reads these changes in light of recent transformations in the fields of comparative literature and cultural studies and suggests that scholars in these fields are now in a position to embark on productive dialogue and exchange. Before such interaction takes place, however, McClennen cautions, we should recall why there has historically been little intellectual exchange between comparatists and scholars of Latin American literature. Barriers to exchange between these areas have been: The …

Anxieties Of Impotence: Cuban Americas In New York City, Christina Marie Tourino

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her paper, "Anxieties of Impotence: Cuban Americas in New York City, " Christina Marie Tourino seeks a basis for comparison between Latin American literatures and Latino literatures of the United States. Such groups have rarely been compared in the past because they are considered part of the same literary "family." However, Tourino argues that owing to the flows of capital driven by global pressures, literatures between and among Latin Americans and Latinos hail from such culturally heterogeneous sites and are made over by so many relocations that they do call for comparative projects. Instead of comparing texts across national …

Bibliography Of Scholarship In Comparative Latin American Culture And Literature, Sophia A. Mcclennen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

A Descriptive Study Of Asian Student Preferences Concerning Cross-Cultural Communication In University Settings, Maki Kawatani

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the Caudill College of Humanities at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts by Maki Kawatani on May 28, 2002.

Monstrous Youth In Suburbia: Disruption And Recovery Of The American Dream, Kristen Hoerl

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although the American Dream myth idealizes youth who grow up in suburbia as culture types of imminent success, the Columbine High School shootings demonstrated that all not suburban youth will grow up to succeed. The extensive news media coverage of the tragedy reflects broader anxieties about the declining status of the suburbs in American society. In the wake of the shootings, the news media created a myth of monstrous youth in suburbia that functioned to repair suburbanites’ waning faith in the myth of the American Dream.

Mechanical Angel: Carolyn Forché And The Material Projection Of Messianic History, Alan Clinton

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

The work of Carolyn Forché has always retained a political edge, with works such as the exploration of her Czech background in Gathering the Tribes (1976) and her account of visits to El Salvador in The Country Between Us (1981). Forché has been one of the leading poets who, in her own words, has combatted the self-censorship operative among American poets and writers that seemed to preclude writing about...historical events when those events were still unsafe (qtd. in Stein 147). Her third book of poems The Angel of History (published 13 years later), however, represents a new turn …

On Jean Baudrillard's Impossible Exchange, Liam Mcnamara

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In many ways, Jean Baudrillard has never really attracted the critical attention that he deserves; his early brilliant books, such as For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1981) and The Mirror of Production (1975) remain resolutely out of print, perhaps because they do not accord with his recent high profile in the media. The hermetic obscurantism of these older texts repels a more casual reader, steeped as they are in poststructuralist theory and remote Marxist anthropology. They are also more rigorously scholarly than books such as Impossible Exchange, and therefore a less pleasurable …

Querying Komparatistik: Recent Books By Corbineau-Hoffmann, Konstantinovic, And O'Sullivan, Wendy C. Nielsen

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

A Revaluation Of Pasolini's Salò, A. Robert Lauer

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his study "A Revaluation of Pasolini's Salò" A. Robert Lauer argues that in his last film, Salò o Le centoventi giornate di Sodoma, Pasolini deals specifically with Fascism as substance and system, as well as -- structurally and intentionally -- with the Sadeanism of Les 120 Journées de Sodome. Morever, as a self-consuming artifact, in Salò Pasolini condemns simultaneously the excesses and failures of the postmodern state and advances the concept of a new peratology based on a greater sense of personal and historical responsibility. To demonstrate his points, Lauer refers to four cinematographic techniques that …

Courting Desire And The (Al)Lure Of David E. Kelley's Ally Mcbeal, Kathleen Kelly Baum

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article"Courting Desire and the (Al)lure of David E. Kelley's Ally McBeal" Kathleen Kelly Baum compares the tropes of desire and the law in David E. Kelley's television series Ally McBeal with similar motifs extracted from Lacanian theory. In her study, Baum explores the psychological and social implications of thematic characterizations and situations from the television series' five seasons by engaging Lacan's premise that subjective identity results from an economic relation between self and other -- a relation that is continuously mediated by symbolization and governed by social mores and cultural imperatives. In addition, Baum traces ways in which …

Literary Translation In Britain And Selective Xenophobia, Eric Dickens

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Literary Translation in Britain and Selective Xenophobia," Eric Dickens discusses the fact that fewer translations of works of contemporary prose, poetry, and essays appear in Great Britain than perhaps anywhere else in Europe. Dickens attributes this shortfall to various factors, including poor language teaching and an indifference to foreign languages in general, but also to a degree of smugness with regard to literature written in English being "the best in the world." In his study Dickens covers such areas as the availability of literary translations in bookshops, the attitudes of publishers, and the effect of prizes on …

Wrestling And Popular Culture, Dalbir S. Sehmby

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article "Wrestling and Popular Culture" Dalbir S. Sehmby investigates a phenomenon of television culture. Wrestling has been for a long time now a main feature of television with a sizable audience. However, scholars in popular culture, audience studies, or television studies have paid little attention to this phenomenon and Dalbir argues that the study of wrestling in popular culture ought to be of interest to scholars of culture. In his discussion, Dalbir addresses notions of high art versus low art along with notions of high television versus low television. He continues with a discussion of the recent history …

Comparative Literature As A Messenger Of Diversity: New Books By Cassola, Durisin And Gnisci, And Kushner And Pageaux, Nicoletta Pireddu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

Contradictions Of Interaction For Wives Of Elderly Husbands With Adult Dementia, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Tamara D. Golish, Loreen N. Olson

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The researchers used a dialectical framework to examine interviews with wives whose elderly husbands experienced adult dementia from Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD), centering on how wives coped communicatively with their husbands’ illness. These “married widows” experienced a primary contradiction between their husbands’ physical presence and cognitive/emotional absence. Interwoven with the presence-absence contradiction were three additional contradictions: certainty-uncertainty, openness-closedness, and past-present. Results describe the ways these wives communicatively negotiated the web of contradictions as they interacted in the present with husbands they once knew. Applications for practitioners and caregivers working with ADRD patients and their wives, including formal and …

“The Policy Exists But You Can’T Really Use It”: Communication And The Structuration Of Work-Family Policies, Erika L. Kirby, Kathleen J. Krone

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Although work-family benefits are increasingly important organizational policies, limited research addresses the impact of communication on benefit utilization. However, communication is significant because the perceived appropriateness of work-family benefits emerges through interaction. For example, when coworkers complain about “picking up the slack” for those using family leave, their discourse may impact future decisions of other workers regarding whether they utilize the work-family benefits available to them. We apply Giddens’ (1984) Structuration Theory to examine organizational members’ discursive responses to conditions (and contradictions) present in utilizing work-family benefits in a governmental organization. We argue the daily discursive practices of individuals can …

The Rise Of Mass Culture Theory And Its Effect On Golden Age Detective Fiction, Sarah Jean Trainin

Theses Digitization Project

This thesis will explore the segregation of detective fiction from the general fiction market between 1920 and 1940.

Monstrous Youth In Suburbia: Disruption And Recovery Of The American Dream, Kristen Hoerl

Scholarship and Professional Work - Communication

Although the American Dream myth idealizes youth who grow up in suburbia as culturetypes of imminent success, the Columbine High School shootings demonstrated that all not suburban youth will grow up to succeed. The extensive news media coverage of the tragedy reflects broader anxieties about the declining status of the suburbs in American society. In the wake of the shootings, the news media created a myth of monstrous youth in suburbia that functioned to repair suburbanites’ waning faith in the myth of the American Dream.

What Do We Do When We Do Law And Popular Culture, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

"What We Do When We Do Law and Popular Culture" establishes a theoretical framework for analyzing legal popular culture, taking as its point of departure Richard Sherwin's book "When Law Goes Pop." The article stresses what Professor Silbey considers to be three major stumbling blocks in the growing interdiscipline of law and popular culture. She argues that if we are to advance our understanding of the relationship between law and popular culture, we must follow at least three simple charges: (1) demarcate our beginning concepts, such as law or culture, so that amidst the vast phenomena that may be called …

Performing Marriage: Marriage Renewal Rituals As Cultural Performance, Leslie A. Baxter, Dawn O. Braithwaite

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

This interpretive study examined how the marriage renewal ritual reflects the social construction of marriage in the United States. Two culturally prominent ideologies of marriage were interwoven in our interviews of 25 married persons who had renewed their marriage vows: (a) a dominant ideology of community and (b) a more muted ideology of individualism. The ideology of community was evidenced by a construction of marriage featuring themes of public accountability, social embeddedness, and permanence. By contrast, the ideology of individualism constructed marriage around themes of love, choice, and individual growth.

Modern Arabic Film : A Study Of Selected Works Of New Arab Expressionist Filmmakers, Mohamed Masoud Elmasmari

Student Works (2000-2009)

Film reached the major cities of the Arab world within a matter of months of the first film showing in Paris, London, and New York, so the history of film exhibition and to some extent film production in virtually as long in the Arab world as in the West. The experience of the last thirty years has shown situation to be of enormous creative potential for an artist. In this study, attention is paid to the achievements of just a handful of notable filmmakers of the New Arab Cinema, even this choice is limited but not random, for all the …

Establishing Understandings: Teaching About Culture In Introductory Television Courses, Barbara R. Burke, Julie Rae Patterson-Pratt

Communication, Media, and Rhetoric Publications

In teaching introductory courses using television equipment, we find that cultural studies interests can be meshed with basic skills-oriented production classes in useful ways. Utilizing an on-going discussion strategy emphasizing that students are evaluating, criticizing, and interpreting, as well as producing cultural products, the activities we describe articulate the reflexive nature of media and culture. Furthermore, in asking students to investigate and explore ways media both construct and reflect their understanding of culture, students are guided to begin a life-long process of critical thinking.

Autotopography: Graffiti, Landscapes, & Selves, Deirdre Heddon

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

For some time now I have been interested in autobiographical performance -- some form of the theatrical, in which performers explicitly use personal material in their work. Within this general field of autobiography and performance, one area of research concerns performances that are dependent on being located in personalised space -- what could be called, then, site-specific autobiographical performance. A recent example of this would be the performance Bubbling Tom (2000), by the UK based performer Mike Pearson, which saw Pearson return to the village of his childhood, to reflect upon and re-enact certain memories, events and persons …

The Mind Museum: Rudolf Schwarzkogler And The Vienna Actionists, Philip Barnes

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Sixth paragraph]

In the following essay I discuss the Austrian artist Rudolf Schwarzkogler. I have enjoyed the process of ferreting out articles and references to him, although these are seemingly as scarce as his own artistic output. Schwarzkogler spent just 2 years staging performance-actions in his apartment in the 1960s. These methodically photographed scenes involved sliced fish, bandages, light bulbs, razor blades, foodstuffs and surgical apparatus, all manipulated by anonymous figures. The photographs, works of art in their own right, have since toured internationally. Schwarzkogler was the least outgoing of a group called the Viennese Actionists, whose orgiastic, bloody Happenings …

Being-There And Being-From-Elsewhere: An Existential-Analytic Of Exile, Farhang Erfani

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragrap]

I find myself in an unsettling position, as I do not know where to begin to talk about a philosophically neglected topic: exile. I cannot hide behind the famous names of the tradition; I cannot speak through them about exile in order to make my inquiry sound more legitimate since most of them did not address the topic. Isn't it interesting though that my inability to know where to start and the lack of legitimacy that I feel are in themselves two typical symptoms of the exiled? In all fairness, exile has become a buzzword and is fashionable …

Remembering Dehlie: A Chrono-Topo-Graphy Of Imagination, Subhash Jaireth

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In a few weeks I shall be going to India to see my daughter. This will be our first meeting after she went back to India with her mother five years ago. She is fifteen now, and, in a way, a complete stranger to me. You don't know me, she tells me often on the phone, Neither do I know you. The little girl whom you carried on your shoulders and played hopscotch with, is nothing but a shadow. Come and see what has become of me. I have made up my mind to go but I know …

The Cyborgian Self: Toward A Critical Social Theory Of Cyberspace, Michael Ian Borer

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Contemporary social theory currently remains at a virtual standstill, quivering over the decision to radically leave the past behind or to continue within the historical narrative of the Enlightenment. Postmodern social theorists, advocating the position that we have, in fact, entered a new historical epoch, pose serious challenges to our perception of modernity and cultural identity. As an influential strategy that has infiltrated both the humanities and the social sciences for more than thirty years, postmodernism can no longer be dismissed as merely a fad or trend. In a world where the use of complex, and often mobile, …

Solaris, America, Disneyworld And Cyberspace: Salman Rushdie's Fairy-Tale Utopianism In Fury, Justyna Deszcz

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

In this paper, I discuss the figure of professor Malik Solanka, the protagonist of Salman Rushdie's latest novel, Fury (2001), and his attempts at constructing a fairy tale utopia as a means of establishing his identity. I try to elucidate this problem referring to the concepts of the fairy tale utopian as formulated by J. R. R. Tolkien, Ernst Bloch, and Jack Zipes, as their propositions can be regarded as the most effective exponents of the utopian imagination and seem very applicable to Rushdie's utopian attempts. On the basis of such a reading, I also reflect on the …

Rich Earth Below The Sand' And The Origins Of The Thames Embankments, Stuart Oliver

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

This essay explores the designing of the Thames embankments that were built between 1866 and 1874 for the Metropolitan Board of Works. In particular it concentrates on the origins of what might be called the production of the conditions of production of the embankments. By looking at the motivation of those advocating embanking as a means of exerting literal and figurative control over the river, and the ways in which society influenced such advocacy and determined its effectiveness, the essay explores modernity's construction of a regulated natural in the context of an analysis that is sensitive to the …

Supposing A Space: The Detecting Subject In Paul Auster’S City Of Glass, Richard Swope

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

No abstract provided.

Rorty's Complicit American Neo-Pragmatism, Haidar Eid

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[First paragraph]

Despite the obvious French origin of poststructuralism, its paradigmatic resonance can be found in the American philosophical scene, an essential part of which is Richard Rorty's neo-pragmatism -- the theoretical basis of American (post)modernism. However, different from poststructuralism's apparent antagonism to the authoritarian establishments, Rorty adopts the Derridean poststructuralist motifs of the decentering of the subject, and the disappearance of meaning and truth in order to defend the establishment -- or rather, the status quo.