International and Intercultural Communication Commons^™

Philosophers In Search Of Life..., David A. White

International Dialogue

If, after reading the above title, someone has ventured this far—the opening sentence—then he or she has doubtless conquered any urge to dismiss the contents of this piece (and do something else...) because the title is so blatantly silly. Onlya philosopher would be so sadly quixotic as to feel a need to become involved in a “search” for life. Dwelling in the realm of the living is where we humans spend all our waking hours. Furthermore, all of us settle into sleep for a greater or lesser amount of time and once in that state (discounting the differentiating factor of …

Rawls’S Political Liberalism, Matthew Jones

International Dialogue

The contribution that John Rawls has made to political philosophy, and liberal political philosophy more specifically, should not be underestimated. His two key texts, A Theory of Justice (1971), and Political Liberalism (1993), not only reinvigorated social contract theory, but set the foundation for much of the contemporary debate surrounding the nature of the liberal democratic state given the fact of reasonable pluralism. If the European philosophical tradition, as noted by Alfred North Whitehead, should be seen as a series of footnotes to Plato, then contemporary Anglo-American political philosophy, especially if it intersects with aspects of liberal political philosophy, could …

Lawrence Of Arabia’S War: The Arabs, The British And The Remaking Of The Middle East In Wwi, Bruce M. Garver

International Dialogue

Seldom does a newly published book both enlarge our understanding of its subject and enhance our appreciation of its principal primary sources. In Lawrence of Arabia’s War, Neil Faulkner admirably achieves both objectives. In the first instance, he thoroughly and critically discusses British foreign policy and military operations in the Middle East and North Africa from 1914 through 1922, with emphasis upon British relations with the Arabs, primarily the desert-dwelling Hashemite sherifs as opposed to the landlords and officials who dominated millions of Arab small farmers and city dwellers. Whenever appropriate, he carefully examines relations between the British and their …

Victims Without Philosophy: Intellectuals And Power; General Theory Of Victims, Stanimir Panayotov

International Dialogue

There does not exist an easy way to discuss François Laruelle and it is impossible to be ecstatic about his writing. The two books under scrutiny here—Intellectuals and Power and General Theory of Victims—are, however, a relatively accessible introduction to the machinic parlance that Laruelle superposes onto philosophy’s presumed legibility. The human instance he discusses in both works is that of the victim. These two books could be both beneficial for and alienating to the wider readership in humanities: not for lack of originality (or even clarity), but due to the signature-style of conceptual resistance in Laruelle’s language. Virtually every-one—from …

How We Fight: Ethics In War, Roger Bergman

International Dialogue

As indicated by the editors, the ten essays in this volume “arose from a conference on just war theory held at the University of Sheffield [United Kingdom] in August 2010” (vii). The authors are all academics and all but two are philosophers; the outliers are professors of law and of politics. The emphasis is indeed on just war theory, not investigation of the development of the just war tradition over many centuries in theological, philosophical, or legal contexts, or of its application to historical cases from the remote or recent past. One should not look here for scholarly illumination, say, …

What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction To His Life And Thought, Terrence L. Johnson

International Dialogue

Frantz Fanon’s imprint on twentieth century political philosophy and strikingly poignant role in shaping black radical traditions throughout the African Diaspora in the 1960s and 1970s is undeniable. Black activists and intellectuals found refuge in his writings, where blackness was made visible, embodied and cultivated into an epistemic resource for mapping revolutionary responses to antiblack racism, colonialism and gender and sexuality. Stokely Carmichael, the chief architect of the Black Power movement in the U.S., routinely referred to Fanon’s writing in his public speeches on Black Power, and for many others in the U.S. and throughout the African Diaspora Fanon’s writings …

The Great Depression In Latin America, N. Clark Capshaw

International Dialogue

This book is an edited collection of essays on the effect of the Great Depression on various Latin American countries. Though not all Latin American countries are addressed, there is sufficient coverage to enable some generalizations, comparisons, and contrasts for the region, and to infer some general lessons about the enduring effect of the depression on the region. The countries addressed include Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba.

Welcome To The Desert Of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia, Joseph L. Derdzinski

International Dialogue

True to its title, or at least its secondary title, Welcome to the Desert of Post-Socialism: Radical Politics After Yugoslavia minces few words in its radical assessment of the past twenty years’ impact on the societies, politics and economies of the post-Yugoslav Balkans. With an eye toward the pitfalls of a forced political and economic liberalization, the contributors’ unalloyed assessments that liberalization’s disruptions and malaise have made life all the worse reinforces an important perspective and critique into the West’s unshakable belief in the twinned powers of democracy and the market.

Repeating Žižek, J. Jesse Ramírez

International Dialogue

It has become a genre protocol for reviews of Slavoj Žižek’s books to comment critically—and, too often, dismissively—on his tremendous output. His newest books, of which there seem to be several each year, not only echo previous ones, but also reproduce whole passages verbatim. Terry Eagleton has called Žižek “one of the great self-plagiarisers of our time, constantly thieving stuff from his own publications” (Eagleton 2014). While I have contributed to this genre protocol in a past review, I have come to regard Žižek’s furious publishing pace as, in part, a strategy to make a living as a radical intellectual …

Whistleblowers, Leaks, And The Media: The First Amendment And National Security, Heidi Kitrosser

International Dialogue

In 2000, President Bill Clinton vetoed a bill that would have criminalized all unauthorized leaks of classified information.1 In his veto message, Clinton agreed that “unauthorized disclosures can be extraordinarily harmful to United States national security interests and that far too many disclosures occur.” But the bill failed, in his view, to balance national security interests with “the rights of citizens to receive the information necessary for democracy to work.” The bill threatened to chill even “appropriate public discussion [or] press briefings” by Government officials. Similarly, it could have “restrain[ed] the ability of former government officials to teach, write, or …

Trouble In Paradise: Political Economy And Cultural Criticism: Trouble In Paradise: From The End Of History To The End Of Capitalism, Edward Sandowski, Betty J. Harris

International Dialogue

Slavoj Žižek’s title Trouble in Paradise is also the name of a 1932 movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch, a movie which Žižek begins discussing as his first topic in his introduction. But the title obviously also reflects the notion that there is a difference between the superficial appearances of social life (often publically attractively depicted, with supporting justifications, sustaining collective illusions) and a time of deep societal troubles. Žižek says about his own title: “The ‘paradise’ in the title of this book refers to the End of History (as elaborated by Francis Fukuyama: liberal democratic capitalism as the finally found …

The Soul Of Armies: Counterinsurgency Doctrine And Military Culture In The Us And Uk, Aaron Edwards

International Dialogue

The Soul of Armies by Austin Long is a much-needed counter-balancing analysis to the steady flow of hagiographies that have appeared over the past decade on the counter-insurgency operations undertaken by the United States and United Kingdom around the world. Long challenges many of the prevailing assumptions underpinning the increasingly malleable doctrine of counter-insurgency.

Civics Beyond Critics: Character Education In A Liberal Democracy, Eric R. Boot

International Dialogue

It is quite common to make the argument that a stable liberal democracy requires high levels of compliance with the law. Scholars disagree, however, how such reliable and widespread compliance can be achieved. Roughly, liberals have traditionally emphasized the importance of arriving at compliance by way of autonomous and critical reasoning, whereas others (communitarians and republicans chiefly) argue that autonomous motives are notoriously weak and can, therefore, not by themselves bring about a high enough rate of compliance. The exclusionary importance accorded to autonomy by (many) liberals bars the state from cultivating the habits, sentiments and civic virtue upon which …

Music And International History In The Twentieth Century, Frédéric Ramel

International Dialogue

For several decades, musicologists have dealt with the role of music in international relations using their own tools. They have focused on musical change in the context of modernity, especially how traditional music and folk music interact with music from other localities. Paradoxically, musicologists have contributed more to the field of international relations than historians or political scientists. Fortunately, those in history and political science have initiated an acoustic turn which aims to fill the gap. Jessica Gienow-Hecht is one historian who has promoted this movement thanks to her well-known monography dedicated to cultural American-German relations in early twentieth century …

Interactive Democracy: The Social Roots Of Global Justice, David Reidy

International Dialogue

In this book, Carol Gould tries to envision a future for democracy that is both faithful to what she takes to be its philosophical and normative ground and well-matched to the political challenges of advancing global justice. These challenges arise because the social and institutional world is increasingly complex, with the relevance of state boundaries diminishing significantly in recent decades when it comes to identifying and evaluating agents, acts and effects on the global stage. I begin by reconstructing and summarizing what I take to be her central line of argument.

Voices Of The Undocumented, Ramón Guerra

International Dialogue

In the foreword to Val Rosenfeld’s Voices of the Undocumented, she illustrates the background for the collection of oral histories from immigrants. The immigrants in the collection are primarily from Latin American countries and have arrived in the San Francisco, California area without any documents to provide either residency or other legal status. The precarious nature of their existence in the United States underscores the very essence of this compilation and provides a running theme that connects the narratives of these individuals as told and recorded through oral history. While Rosenfeld refers to a preliminary personal draw to learning about …

Divergent Paths: The Academy And The Judiciary, Paul E. Mcgreal

International Dialogue

In Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary, Judge Richard Posner proposes a partnership between the federal judiciary and law schools.1 He provides a sweeping critique of the federal judiciary and suggests ways in which law schools can address these failings. His critiques fall under the headings of structural deformations (e.g., method of appointment, lifetime tenure), process deficiencies, (e.g., legal formalism in judicial opinion writing, lack of curiosity), and management deficiencies (e.g., poor staff management, lack of collegiality). The corresponding solutions include law schools providing continuing education for federal judges and changing their curricula to include new knowledge and skills. …

Politics Of Religious Freedom, Amanda Ryan

International Dialogue

When tackling the topic of “religious freedom” what are policy-makers and academics trying to define? Is religious freedom a universally defined set of liberal human rights from a secular state, or is religious freedom also seen in religious states? The Politics of Religious Freedom goes into the depths of complexity that is “religious freedom.” The book explores what religious freedom is in a variety of settings: South Asia, North Africa, Middle East, Europe, the United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Brazil.

Maintaining The Japan Connection: The Impact Of Study Abroad On Japanese Language Learners’ Life Trajectories And Ongoing Interaction With Japanese Speakers, Rikki Campbell

Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale

This article explores the post-study abroad life trajectories of learners of Japanese. Drawing upon data collected from eight interviewees, it presents the experiences of study abroad returnees’ ongoing engagement with Japan and Japanese speakers once they were removed from the study abroad environment. In particular, it focuses on the impact of study abroad on ongoing studies and career trajectory, and examines ongoing interaction with Japanese speakers throughout these key life stages. Through the lens of possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986), this study also examines how the informants’ ongoing engagement with the target language is reflected in …

The Importance Of Music Festivals: An Unanticipated And Underappreciated Path To Identity Formation, Kimberly F. Rudolph

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to understand and explain the growing popularity of music and art festivals around the world. Music festivals are events consisting of a variety of bands and musical artists performing shows, on numerous stages, over a period of days to a large audience in outside and inside venues. Through field research, participant-observation, personal interviews, and survey research at the 2015 Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, this study suggests that they are much more than simple entertainment venues. Because humans desire to belong and music functions in the capacity as a global language, music festivals are …

Hydroelectric Dams: The Lao Government's Luxury Trap, M.K. Laurel

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

The research of the Lao government, its hydroelectric dams, and its responses to its project was done through an environmental justice lens. It is an interdisciplinary research that explores the political corruption, the role of media, and the environment in order to frame the Lao government and the reasoning behind their unjust activities.

Intercultural Hierarchy Reinforced Through North American Voluntourism Efforts In Latin America And The Caribbean, Nancy Michelle Ford

Student Scholarship

In this thesis, my goal is to share the insight I have gleaned from my academic, professional and personal involvement in the region. The most dominant theme I have observed is the rising trend of North American volunteer tourism (also referred to as “voluntourism”) in LAC and unanticipated consequences it involves. This trend reinforces an intercultural hierarchy, which will be the focus of my study.

I will begin with an overview of the intercultural, hierarchical mentality and explain two key aspects it involves: the North American “Planner” or “fix-it” tendencies toward the region, and the region’s developed dependence on North …

Exploring Ethnic Stereotypes Through The Production Of Five Short Films, Ines Galiano Torres

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is a nontraditional thesis that combines social research in ethnic stereotypes in TV and film with the creative process of film production. This paper contains the formal step of research, in addition to the details on the production and creation of five original short films related to the issue of ethnic representations.

The Annapurna Road: Development And Tourism On The Annapurna Circuit, Benjamin Skach

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The Annapurna Circuit has oft been called one of the best treks in the world. Its popularity has brought countless trekkers to the region, resulting in a strong local dependence on tourism. In recent years, plan to develop rural regions of Nepal have resulted in extensive road networks being built along the route of the circuit. These roads have helped some locals and hurt others. This study investigates the implementation of the roads in Annapurna Conservation Area and the effects on both trekkers and locals. Further, it examines the New Alternative Trekking Trails that have been implemented along sections of …

The Mainstream Misrepresentation Of Muslim Women In The Media, Megan A. Mastro

What All Americans Should Know About Women in the Muslim World

I discuss the widespread misrepresentation of Islamic women in multiple sources of media and its subsequent effects on the general population's perception of this demographic as a whole.

A Cross-Cultural Analysis Of Argumentativeness Among Christians In France And Britain, Stephen M. Croucher, Samara Anarbaeva, Jacob Turner, Deepa Oommen, Ian Borton

Speaker & Gavel

This study analyzes the differences in argumentativeness between France and Britain. A total of 521 individuals in France (n = 244) and Britain (n = 277) participated in this study. Results indicate British Christians had a lower level of argumentativeness than French Christians. Religiosity was a nonsignificant predictor of total argumentativeness in France. However, in Britain, religiosity significantly predicted 37% of total argumentativeness.

Ilhan, Nura, Radwa, Ziagull And Children, Ilhan, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Ilhan, his wife Nura, and their children resided near Kabul, in a region where both the Taliban and ISIS were active. As Shias, Ilhan’s family faced numerous menaces, including threats from ISIS that they would be beheaded if they did not display ISIS flags. Ilhan’s sister Radwa, who is deaf and mute, was forced to marry a regional leader. In addition to being threatened on religious grounds, Ilhan’s family was also threatened by an elder of their town. Out of desperation, Ilhan’s family sold their house appliances, escaped Afghanistan, and arrived at the …

Building Hope: An Experiential, Interfaith And Peacebuilding Leadership Curriculum Design For American, Israeli And Palestinian Teenagers, Jack M. Karn

Capstone Collection

This research explores the design, implementation, and results of an interfaith and peacebuilding leadership curriculum prepared for the 2015 Jerusalem Peacebuilders Leadership Camp in Brattleboro, Vermont. Drawing upon different theories of moral and transformative leadership, experiential education, youth leadership, and peacebuilding and conflict transformation, this curriculum design offers a new and unique approach to leadership development for Israeli, Palestinian, and American teens. Spanning six 1.5-hour units, the curriculum includes: icebreaker and teambuilding activities, theory and practice connections, dialogue, and opportunities to practice leadership and peacebuilding skills on several small group projects. Supported by a literature review, eight interviews from youth …

A Mapping System As A Method In Experiential Culture Learning And Engagement, Faisal Mohammad

Theses and Dissertations

From my observation as a new resident in Education City, I recognize a need for cultural awareness and communication amongst those studying and working in this particular area. With this project I propose a different experience, a new way to use experiential learning as a mechanism to change people’s predetermined opinions about one another and disrupt personal biases in order to foster cultural awareness and friendship.

A mapping system or wayfinding strategy to navigate a new city is the beginning of a visitor’s experience in a new place. This new experience is one way for users to identify locations through …

Introduction: Foreign Films And Higher Education, Heba A.N. El Attar Ph.D.

Cultural Encounters, Conflicts, and Resolutions

No abstract provided.