Critical and Cultural Studies Commons^™

Vedantic Basis And Praxis Of The Integral Advaita Of Sri Aurobindo, Debashish Banerji

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The integral nondualism of Sri Aurobindo can be traced to the great pronouncements (mahāvākya) of the Upanishads and later commentaries. This study examines teachings on the Supermind (vijñāna) and the other four kinds of consciousness that define human reality: Matter (annaṃ), Life (prāṇaḥ), Mind (manaḥ), and Bliss (ānanda). Through Yoga and Tantra, one learns and embodies the pathway to the divine.

Digital And Spatial Humanities Mapping: Eurasia-Pacific Early Trade And Belief Linkages, Igor Sitnikov, David Blundell

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The Eurasia-Pacific is a dynamic region of rapid economic growth, cultural awareness, natural resource exploration, and military buildup. The concept of the region is relatively new, featuring contested vast areas of geo-resource space of numerous cultures and languages. The current findings in anthropology and archaeology and even its more specific subfields such as folklore are important contribution to the understanding of periodic environmental changes and technical innovations were the main forces of transformations in social structures that have determined the mechanisms and levels of cross-cultural trade activity across the region. We have traced early trade and belief linkages across Eurasia-Pacific …

Tusha Hiti: The Origin And Significance Of The Name, Deepak Shimkhada

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

In this article, the author examines the royal bath called Tushā Hiti located in Sūndari Chowk (Beautiful Courtyard) of Pātan Durbar Square, using six different methods of investigation. The question: What is in a name? started the ball of investigation rolling and along the way were added more supporting blocks such as history, iconography, function and purpose, notion of purity and impurity, and finally the hiti in popular culture to get a complete picture of the subject in question.

Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion: Perspectives From Contemporary India And 6th Century Jain Yoga, Christopher Key Chapple

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

Times New Roman

Ganges In Indian Sculpture And Literature: Mythology And Personification, Nalini Rao

Monsoon: South Asian Studies Association Journal

The river Ganges is a symbol of wealth, purity and eternity, and its sacred waters have inspired sages, philosophers, and artists in India who have immortalized its divine imagery. However, it has rarely been understood from a historical point of view, as to how it became so sacred and to view it from a multi-dimensional and interdisciplinary perspective with an accumulation of layers of historical thought and practices, provides a rationale for the living practices around the river. The paper explores the evolution of the concept of sacredness and eternity of River Ganges through art- historical and archaeological evidence. It …

Lee Isaac Chung, Minari (2020): Having An Amerikorean Life, Nagehan Uzuner

Markets, Globalization & Development Review

Minari by Lee Isaac Chung is a drama which chronicles the life of a Korean family who moves to the USA during 1980s in pursuit for a better life. The acculturation process is experienced differently by family members. Children are mostly bored with their new life in the rural area of Arkansas while their mother, Monica, is terrified of living in a mobile home which is made of a truck trailer in the middle of nowhere. Meanwhile, the grandmother joins the family from Korea to take care of the kids with a more positive approach dealing with their struggles. The …

Amjambo Africa! (March 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

Welcome Center .......................4

Spotlight on business ...............5

Hazard Pay ................................5

Community Food Center ........7

Poem by Nyamuon Nguany

Machar .......................................8

Fufu & Math ........................... 14

Legislative Update ..................15

Singer Clarisse Karasira ........37

DEI/Lewiston............................ 3

Translations French ......................9/13

Swahili ....................10/13

Somali ...............11/13/36

Kinyarwanda .........12/32

Portuguese .............30/32

Spanish ...................31/32

Health&Wellness. ..............20-27

Nutritious eating

In English & translation

Columns New Voices ................8/34/35

Professional Development ... 7

Ask the District Attorney....16

Bureau of Motor Vehicles ...16

Ask the Doctor ....................19

Finance ................................. 33

Community organizations. 28

Beautiful Blackbird .............18

Let’s Talk ...............................35

Maine Immigration .............36

Iraqi immigration freeze ....39

Amjambo Africa! (February 2022), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Afghan Resettlement ............2/3

Lunar New Year ........................4

Maine Youth Network .............5

Afrofuturism with MHC......... 7

Editorial .....................................8

Translations French .........................9/13

Swahili .......................10/13

Somali .......................11/13

Kinyarwanda ............12/13

Portuguese ................28/30

Spanish ......................29/30

MCF grant opportunities ......14

Legislative update ...................15

Tips & Info ........................16/31

New Roots Farm .....................17

The Samosa Story .............18/19

Health&Wellness... ............20-27

Cardiac Health In English & translations

Columns ..................................32

Maine Equal Justice South Portland Sustainability MIRC

Tax Season...33

In English & translations

New Voices columns ..............34

Rupal Ramesh Shah Roseline Souebele

Hope in Augusta .................... 37

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

2022 Mlk Keynote Address: Eddie Glaude Jr. Pre-Event Presentation, Center For Social Equity & Inclusion, Eddie Glaude Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Series

One of the nation’s most prominent scholars, Eddie Glaude, Jr. is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and passionate educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience. His writings, including his most recent—the New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own—take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s …

Winter 2022

Conversations

Dean's Letter; Remembering Jill O'Brien (1947-2021); Mastering the Art of Professional Communication: A new online master's program helps communications professionals advance their careers; Inclusive Journalism for a Diverse Society: Faculty member Judith McCray aims to deepen the bench of diverse journalists; An Alumna with an Ear for News: Rachel Hinton; Interorganizational Networks for Social Impact: A conversation with Assistant Professor Kate Cooper

Amjambo Africa! (January 2022), Kathereen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Editorial ....................................6

Translation

French/Portuguese ...............8

Swahili ...................................9

Somali ..................................10

Kinyarwanda........................10

Spanish ................................11

Liberation Farms ....................12

Equity in education ................13

Cross-racial conversation ......13

Special feature....................15-18

History of Medieval Africa Contributed by USM student authors

Finance Advice for the New Year .... 19

Poetry ......................................20

Contributed by South Portland student poets

Legislative Updates Permanent Commission ....21

Priority bills for the 130th

session .................................21

Mental health: home begins in the body ..................................24

Columns ..................................27

Maine Equal Justice

ILAP

IntWork

Let’s Talk

New Voices ........................28/29

Zabrina Richards

Nsiona Nguizani

Gashi

Bénédicte Wonganombe

Rupal Ramesh Shah

Coco McCracken

Mayor Deqa Dhalac of …

Children’S Film Media’S Influence On Gender, Race, And Identity, Sara M. Kovis

Communication Senior Capstones

Whether conscious of it or not, media images have been working our entire lives to construct our attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of the world around us. What is the significance of the relationship between media consumption and how we interact in society? Applying communication theories and research into traditional and digital media is vital in understanding the realities around us. It explains where societal norms and values stimulate and how they trigger new behavioral changes. Ideologies are the mixed concepts and elements that create meaning in society. Today, people's ideological feelings produce pre-dated ideologies rather than their ideas. These are …

Protector And Friend: Turning Points And Discursive Constructions Of The Stepparent Role, Bailey M. Oliver, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Vincent R. Waldron, Robert Hall, Lucas Hackenburg, Braedon G. Worman

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: To understand turning points (TPs) in the development of positive stepparent–stepchild communication and relationships.

Background: Scholars stress the importance of communication in co-constructing healthy stepparent–stepchild relationships. The researchers focused on positive stepparenting via understanding transformational turning point (TP) events across time. Research questions explored how stepparents with an overall positive relationship with a stepchild characterize TPs and the discursive constructions of the stepparent role.

Method: The team analyzed 877 pages of data from 37 in-depth interviews with stepparents who described self-identified TP events, reflected in visual graphs of 279 TPs.

Results: Data were coded into 11 TP types, focused …

Visionary Art As Evolving Consciousness, Azul Delgrasso

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Visionary art is art that is not confined by form, it argues that the artist who creates spiritual art allows the spirit to guide them, rather than relying on traditional form or technique. This can result in art that is incredibly unique and expressive, as it comes from a place of pure creativity and intuition. It also examines the visionary art of Alex Grey whose works offer a gateway into a different state of consciousness, where the viewer can access new insights and perspectives. In in a world that is becoming increasingly disconnected from the creative body, visionary art can …

Pants On Fyre: Parasitic Masculinity And The Fyre Festival Documentaries, Kristen Hoerl, Casey Ryan Kelly

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

The documentaries Fyre Fraud and FYRE: The Greatest Party that Never Happened recount the fraudulent and imprudent decision-making process that led up to the ill-fated Fyre Fest. These documentaries represent the music festival’s failure through depictions of white masculinity that seek parasitic attachment and proximity to the hegemonic ideal of masculine authority in the neoliberal marketplace. We argue that these movies map the operations of an imitative form of white masculine subjectivity that thrives in precarity, even as they recuperate the status of late-stage neoliberalism by symbolically removing parasitic masculinity from the neoliberal social order that it feeds on.

Women In American Pop Music: Christina Aguilera’S Impact On Cultural Narratives, Chin Wai (Rosie) Wong

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Pop music as a mainstream medium is often more enjoyed than critically studied. Former studies and literatures point out a major issue that many American female pop music artists face. These artists are often confined in a box that reduces their full human-being attributes to a narrowed view, where their identity is portrayed in a diminishing and inaccurate way. Despite this narrowed narrative of what a woman should be, this box has become a norm that many female artists must adhere to in order to achieve mainstream success. This paper responds to this phenomenon by analyzing Christina Aguilera’s music, spanning …

Comparison Of Chinese And Western Arts Mirroring The Evolvement Of Consciousness, Rui Peng

Journal of Conscious Evolution

A few researchers of consciousness in the West demonstrate that the development of western art mirrors the evolvement of human Consciousness since human civilization emerged. This paper explores the differences in art development between China and the West by comparing the artworks in the same era. Furthermore, discussing why the Chinese scholar art over two thousand years does not reflect the same structures of Consciousness that western researchers defined.

Honor Thyself, Alonzo O. Williams

Dance (MFA) Theses

The black male experience and identity in America are filled with complexity. We struggle to know ourselves. We work to see the way of love and the peace of an unviolated free spirit. We want to engage with ourselves with the highest degree of freedom and comfort, not to continue to question our identity in a life-threatening white patriarchal masculinity ideal. Honoring oneself from the lenses of the Reconstruction era of the United States is essential. Reconceptualizing this history explores the significance of emphasizing Reconstruction in my life as a black male to go through a process of self-discovery and …

A Grounded Approach To Integral Art Therapy: Initial Reflections On Art Materials, Natalia Gómez-Carlier

Journal of Conscious Evolution

Art therapy has the power to bring healing and wholeness as it expands globally, an awareness of the integral structure of consciousness can benefit an adaptation of this profession that is both integrative and respectful of multiple perspectives and cultural views. The art-making process in art therapy can ground experience, and art materials can serve as vehicles through which different structures on consciousness are elicited, experienced, documented, and integrated. Integral art therapy can study the use of art materials to activate an integral structure of consciousness. Integrality is defined by its ability to play simultaneously from all structures of …

Aesthetic Altruism: Consciousness Of Street Artists, Melanie Cheng

Journal of Conscious Evolution

In the past few decades, many street artists have gained international recognition and now straddle the worlds of actual street art – art in the streets, art in the public domain – and fine art – art that is perceived to be of a particular quality, shown in galleries or museums. Despite perhaps “transcending” the streets, most successful street artists choose to continue creating artwork in public spaces, both legally with permission, or illegally without. Street art is different from public art, which is categorically created through a public process; while some street art, if not created aesthetically or …

Paths To Positivity: Relational Trajectories And Interaction In Positive Stepparent-Stepchild Dyads, Vincent R. Waldron, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Bailey M. Oliver-Blackburn, Brianna L. Avalos

Department of Communication Studies: Faculty Publications

Stepfamilies are inherently complex family systems, marked by change, flexible boundaries, and early conflict. But the developmental pathways by which long-term stepparent relationships become positive require more study. We interviewed 38 stepchildren who had reached adulthood, to understand how their relationships with a stepparent became positive. Four relational trajectories defined these positive relationships: punctuated, consistent positive, progressive incline, and modulated turbulent. Distinctive communicative practices were associated with each trajectory, such as communicating assurances, “siding,” or revelations of character. In addition, the trajectories shared three common processes: responsiveness to stepchild vulnerability, stepparent “adding value” to the family, and maturation/ reframing of …

Afroam: A Virtual Film Production Group, Bill Taylor Jr.

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

Because of the gatekeeping practices of the Hollywood film industry, and the high cost of both filmmaking and distribution in general, Afro-American filmmakers have struggled to produce films with “global reach.” This study visits the possibility of Afro-American filmmakers using alternative technologies and infrastructures to produce high-quality films, thereby bypassing the high cost and exclusionary practices of Hollywood studios. Using new 21st-century digital technology, this study involved the creation of a small geographically dispersed virtual film production team. The study’s foundational framework was a constructivist qualitative research paradigm, using Action Research, and supported by 24 months of triangulated data from …

Canceling Vs. #Cancel Culture: An Analysis On The Surveillance And Discipline Of Social Media Behavior Through Competing Discourses Of Power, Julia G. Bezio

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Canceling and #cancelculture have become the topic of many debates over free speech and accountability for oppressive behaviors in social media discourse. This thesis examines Twitter discourse from two recent racism-based cancel cases. Using Foss and Gill’s (1987) adapted epistemic rhetoric framework and emphasizing elements of Foucauldian surveillance and discipline in the discourse, I conduct a comparative qualitative examination of Gina Rodriguez’s and Chris Harrison’s cancel discourse. I contend that in the cancel process, Twitter users engage in surveillance to discipline one another on multiple levels: first, as cancelers use the practice to discipline oppressive behaviors on social media, and …

Engaging Black Girls And Women From The Capital Region, Neimra Coulibaly

Capstones

Black girls and women sit at the intersecting identities of being Black and women in an anti-Black, patriarchal, misogynistic society. There are certain experiences that Black women in the United States endure due to historically negative perceptions of Black women.

When I decided to be a part of the engagement journalism program at the Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, I decided to cover the community of Black girls and women from Schenectady, New York, and the rest of the Capital Region or what I call the (518)

For the past year and a half, I have covered the …

A Case Of Shifting Focus Friction: Extension Directors And State 4-H Program Leaders’ Perspectives On 4-H Lgbtq+ Inclusion, Jeremy Elliott-Engel, Donna Westfall-Rudd, Eric Kaufman, Megan Seibel, Rama Radhakrishna

Journal of Extension

Contemporary Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) youth are identifying and communicating their identities earlier in childhood than generations before as a result of more awareness and more acceptance of gender identity and sexual minorities by society. A qualitative study of U.S. 4-H program leaders and Extension directors generated an emergent theme around the importance of serving LGBT youth and the resulting implementation challenges. The administrators of 4-H, the largest youth serving organization in the country, recognize the presence of LGBTQ+ youth in 4-H and believe the organization must be inclusive. But challenges remain in ensuring youth experience inclusion at …

Exploring The Possibilities Of And Prospects For The Interpersonal And Family Communication Classroom, Mick Brewer

Title III Professional Development Reports

This blog post offers a brief review of some of the discussions had at the 2021 107th annual National Communication Association annual conference.

Re-Framing Gender: An Analysis Of Journalism’S Social Media Characterization Of Female Presidential Candidates During The 2020 Presidential Election, Taylor Kiernan

Dissertations

The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without those who supported me both academically and personally throughout this process.

I would like to thank my dissertation chair and mentor, Dr. Christopher Campbell whose expertise and guidance made this research possible. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members Dr. David Davies, Dr. Cheryl Jenkins, Dr. Laura Stengrim, and Dr. Fei Xue, for their guidance and advice during the research process, as well as their expertise in the classroom which molded my abilities as a researcher during my time at The University of Southern Mississippi.

I …

Amjambo Africa! (December 2021), Kathreen Harrison

Amjambo Africa!

In this Issue

Film: .......................................2/3

Le Intersection/Le Carrefour Zamzam Elmoge Black Owned Maine/Amjambo Holiday Gift Guide. ...........4/5

Editorial......................................6

Healthcare in Chad ...................8

French • Kinyarwanda Portuguese • Somali • Spanish Swahili

Poetry: My version of the American dream ......................13

Hermenegildo Paulo and Mathilde Micomyiza...............14

Diversity Calendar project.....16

Finance/All about cars............18

Columns. ............................18/19

Preble Street • MIRC • ILAP Maine Equal Justice • IntWork

5 New Mainers celebrate holidays...............................20-29

French • Kinyarwanda Portuguese • Somali • Spanish Swahili

Community Health Workers/CHOWs....................28

New Voices...............................29

Rupal Ramesh Shah • Roseline Souebele

Humanitarian crisis in Maine.31

“Don’T Touch My Hair”: An Examination Of The Exercise Of Privilege And Power Through Interracial Hair-Centered Communication Interactions, Zakiya Collier

Proceedings of the New York State Communication Association

The black body, including skin color and hair texture, has served as markers of Otherness separating Black people from people of other racial groups. Because of this, the black body especially that of the female, is frequently subjected to the interrogation by non-black people. This study examines the effects of that interrogation as it relates to black women’s hair. Two critical questions are explored: 1) What role does white privilege play in the questioning and touching of Black hair? and 2) Do these questions signify the innocent quest of information for understanding and coexistence or are they assertions of power …