Sociology of Culture Commons^™

What Is My Role In Changing The System? A New Model Of Responsibility For Structural Injustice, Robin Zheng

Women's and Gender Studies Program: Faculty Publications

What responsibility do individuals bear for structural injustice? Iris Marion Young has offered the most fully developed account to date, the Social Connections Model. She argues that we all bear responsibility because we each causally contribute to structural processes that produce injustice. My aim in this article is to motivate and defend an alternative account that improves on Young’s model by addressing five fundamental challenges faced by any such theory. The core idea of what I call the Role-Ideal Model is that we are each responsible for structural injustice through and in virtue of our social roles, i.e. our roles …

Sourcing Enchantment: From Elemental Appropriation To Imaginal Symbolics, Schwartz, Michael

CONSCIOUSNESS: Ideas and Research for the Twenty-First Century

Critical theorists and social commentators agree that modernity and postmodernity suffer from historical pathologies of world disenchantment. What might be done? Drawing on John Sallis’ phenomenology of the elemental and Tibetan Buddhist teachings on elemental practices, this paper investigates the imagination in its doubling as imaginal in generating a symbolics of the self, world, and other that is always already enchanted; an aesthetics of existence where the world itself shows forth like a work of art replete with exorbitant logics.

Graduate Admissions Recruitment Project, Kevin Anderson, Chiemela Dike, Yixin Du, Arvinder Kaur, Amanda Popp, Huizhong Yang

School of Professional Studies

In this project, several comparison schools were interviewed and disclosed to have used search lists to find candidates. The organizations that have valuable search lists which may be of good use for the School of Professional Studies include Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). By choosing criteria such as demographics, location, academic performance, educational history provided by search lists, we believe there are many quality candidates for SPS programs. However, as we further investigated the functionality and cost-efficiency or return of investment of GRE search list, we spotted many uncertainties and few solid and successful …

Worcester Center For Crafts: A Transition To Online Sales, Monica Gow, Carly Branconnier, Srilatha Prodduturi, Ekaterina Shusharina, Alberta Yamoah

School of Professional Studies

The Clark University School of Professional Studies created a capstone team consisting of Monica Gow, Carly Branconnier, Iana Matkovskaia, Srilatha Prodduturi, Ekaterina Shusharina, and Alberta Yamoah to assist Worcester Center for Crafts (WCC) with the launch of their new online store. Worcester Center for Crafts wanted to showcase their beautiful American handmade crafts on an online platform, Shopify, in order to increase their sales and expand their market reach. The capstone team created a charter that outlined the scope of the project and what the team would deliver to WCC by the end of the project. The team agreed to …

Audubon Data Project Final Report, Askhat Beygenov, Valinur Kutlambetov, Shrikant Patel, Phoebe Roberts, Ulfat Sayyed, Shriram Sivaraman

School of Professional Studies

The Audubon Data Project was initiated as a Clark University Capstone project. The project’s client, Mass Audubon’s Shaping the Future of Your Community program, had identified a need to improve their data management methods and make better use of their data. The Capstone team, composed of Clark University graduate students, met with the client regularly to review the current state of the data and potential improvements to be made. The process began with a data review. During the review we worked with the client to explicitly define the purposes and requirements of the data, the current process for updating and …

Reflections Of A “Pitiyanqui”: My History With Latcrit, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

One of our longtime LatCrit leaders in progressive and emancipatory pedagogy, Roberto Corrada (Denver), reflects on LatCrit’s role in awakening and developing his interest in critical scholarship and critical, community-based, pedagogy. In doing so, he also puts on display how our programmatic work, again, twines the personal with the collective, and the human with the intellectual. He reminds us, again, that our work is rooted in difference, and in learning from it.

Let’S Escape Into The Music: A Cross-Generational Oral History Of Orlando Lgbtq+ Spaces, Hannah Powell

Honors Program Theses

Since Orlando’s first gay bar, The Palace Club, opened in 1969, LGBTQ+ spaces have played an essential role in the Orlando queer community. They have acted as loci of gathering, solidarity, identity-formation, recreation, and even healing. There is an absence of literature on the LGBTQ+ community in Orlando and, more generally, in Central Florida as a whole. The legacy of LGBTQ+ spaces in Orlando is worthy of study due both to the city’s rich queer history and Orlando’s singular experience of the deadliest act of hate-motivated violence against the LGBTQ+ community in the history of the United States. Through documenting …

A Little Dab Will Do Ya: An Exploration Of First Time Dabbers On Youtube, Christopher L. Coker

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This thesis project is an in-depth examination of a rising subculture within cannabis users. With this research project, my aim was to explore and provide insight into the initial experiences of novice cannabis concentrate use as represented on YouTube while they are initiated into this emerging cannabis subculture. Referred to as “dabbing” or “dabs,” this highly potent and concentrated form of cannabis is being utilized by cannabis users to achieve greater highs and effects than those from the traditional cannabis flower. In this study I explored first-time “dabbers” by drawing from social media content in the form of YouTube videos …

Recent Futures: Classical Antiquity As Biopolitical Tool, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Feminism After May '68, Despina Lalaki

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Painters Of Modernity: A Bourdieusian Analysis Of Manet And Degas, Gillian Wei

Honors Theses

In this thesis, I utilize the theoretical framework of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to analyze the representation of class ideology in the paintings of French Impressionists Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. Using Bourdieu’s theories of habitus and class distinction, I investigate various historical and biographical factors to illustrate how Manet and Degas were simultaneously endowed with significant cultural and economic capital of the old elite, yet predisposed to create reactionary art. I also identify several examples of bourgeoisie iconography within specific paintings created by these two artists. I argue that Manet and Degas, acting as agents within the fields of cultural …

I'Ll Hang Around As Long As You Will Let Me : Hard Country Music, The White Working Class, And The Experience Of Loss In The American Neoliberal Context, Nicholas Johnston

Theses, Dissertations, and Projects

This paper utilises the object relations theories of Ronald Fairbairn to conceptualise the narratives of Hard Country music, and understand how they relate to the shifting experiences of the male, white working-class in America in the latter half of the twentieth century. This paper understands the privileges that masculinity and whiteness have afforded the male, white working-class in the post-war period, and attempts to locate the relative loss felt by this population in the subsequent eras of de-industrialisation, neoliberalisation, second-wave feminism and the civil rights movement. Undertaking a thematic analysis of Hard Country music, an art form that purports to …

Symptomatic Leadership In Business Instruction: How To Finally Teach Diversity And Inclusion For Lasting Change, Linda L. Ridley

Publications and Research

Are business faculty complicit in mythologizing business concepts by ignoring historical precedence?

The refusal to examine in totality the history of discrimination and racism allows us to perpetuate a mythology of white supremacy that is enhanced through impotent diversity programs repeated throughout corporate America. This paper examines the importance of demythologizing the business curriculum through symptomatic thinking, which allows faculty and students to untangle the quagmire of diversity and inclusion in corporate America. Students are thereby equipped with tools for behavior transformation in the workplace that uses a symptomatic, rather than symbolic approach, to decision making and problem solving.

Board Policy On Equity And Excellence, Adrienne Coleman, Traci Ellis

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Resources

The Academy recognizes and acknowledges the historical underrepresentation and marginalization of culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse groups, both universally, and particularly, in STEM education and professions. These disparities also exist in the representation of the Academy’s workforce. We are committed to advancing equity in STEM education and representation and creating a diverse, inclusive community of global citizens who can realize their full potential, and execute our mission to advance the human condition, through a model of Equity and Excellence.

Exploring The Nigerian Health System's Response To Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, Otibho Obianwu

Reproductive Health

Although Nigeria has shown a steady long-term decline in female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) prevalence, the practice remains widespread. This study brief outlines the Population Council’s Evidence to End FGM/C research program, which, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health, will conduct a diagnostic assessment in order to: 1) examine how the healthcare sector supports the prevention of FGM/C; 2) determine the role of the healthcare sector in the management of FGM/C-related complications and the quality of care offered to clients; and 3) identify possible solutions for strengthening the healthcare system’s capacity to manage and prevent FGM/C. Findings are intended …

Navigating Law Librarianship While Black: A Week In The Life Of A Black Female Law Librarian, Shamika Dalton, Gail Mathapo, Endia Sowers-Paige

Publications

No abstract provided.

Bibliography For Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion And Ai, Kristin Laughtin-Dunker

Library Displays and Bibliographies

An annotated list of materials in the Leatherby Libraries to accompany the Interstices 2018: Beyond Human: Emotion and AI event held at Chapman University in February 2018. The event featured Lisa Joy, co-creator and executive producer of HBO’s Emmy winning hit series Westworld, Jon Gratch, Director for Virtual Human Research at the University of Southern California’s (USC) Institute for Creative Technologies and Caroline Bainbridge, a Professor of Psychoanalysis and Culture in the Department of Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton London. The Leatherby Libraries also hosted two book club discussions of The Positronic …

The Power In Dice And Foam Swords: Gendered Resistance In Dungeons And Dragons And Live-Action Roleplay, Rachel M. Just

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Much of the existing research on gaming suggests that women are often excluded from or discriminated against in gaming communities. However, few scholars focus on women’s positive experiences within those communities, and even fewer examine tabletop and live-action roleplaying games. In this thesis, I utilized Jurgen Habermas’ theory of communicative action, Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity, and James C. Scott’s theory of hidden transcripts to analyze how in-game and out-of-game comradery among players created a space in which passive resistance against normative gender expectations was possible. Specifically, the question I wanted to answer was how do women communicatively enact …

The Horse: A Driving Force For The Lifestyle Of Grooms, Nicole Foright

Online Theses and Dissertations

The fundamental components of co-occupational relationships between humans and animals and their impact on occupational identity is an area for exploration in the study of occupation. Evaluating the lives of persons whose daily occupations involve working with animals contributes to the exploration of human-animal co-occupations. The aim of this research was to understand the lifestyle of International 4-in-Hand Combined Driving grooms and their symbiotic relationship with horses. This qualitative descriptive study used three methods for data collection and triangulation: semi-structured interviews, observation, and photographs, from 4 participants who served as gatekeepers understanding the culture surrounding the driving community. The data …

Leaving Journalism: Self-Identity During Career Transition For Female Former Kentucky Reporters, Sarah May Heaney

Online Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: This qualitative descriptive study focused on how did leaving the field of journalism affected the life narratives of female former Kentucky reporters.

Method: Three former Kentucky female reporters were interviewed to gather data on their experiences, including how leaving journalism affected their personal and professional self-identities, what about journalism was meaningful to them and what is meaningful in the work they do now, and what values and beliefs did they hold as reporters, and do they still hold them.

Discussion: Thematic data analysis revealed three overarching themes: self-identity as journalists persists after leaving newspaper jobs, other life roles took …