North American Audience Research Articles

Conservation Humanities and Multispecies Justice

This article argues that biodiversity conservation is primarily a social and cultural issue and only secondarily a scientific one. It explains the proxy logic of narratives about endangered species, which typically serve as proxies for community identities and the changes communities have undergone through processes of modernization and colonization. Polar bears, whose endangerment is interpreted differently by North American and European audiences, on the one hand, and by Inuit communities, on the other, serve as an example of how endangered species narratives not only involve culture but also, more specifically, issues of multispecies justice. Conservation humanities needs to engage with the two central problems that multispecies justice has identified and grappled with: conflicts between the interests of disadvantaged human communities and nonhuman species and conflicts and trade-offs between the interests of different nonhuman species. The essay argues that adopting the framework of “multispecies justice” rather than “conservation” will help to overcome some of the impasses of interdisciplinary collaboration in environmental studies in the past.

(Not So) Minor Encounters: Little Amal from The Jungle to The Walk

Abstract: How do we comprehend the scale of contemporary Syrian child displacement, much less represent it theatrically—and ethically? In this essay, I explore how the Good Chance Theatre has continued to try, through the evolving figure of Little Amal, an unaccompanied Syrian girl who appears in two transnational performances, The Jungle (2017) and The Walk (2021). Drawing on interviews with directors, actors, and puppeteers, I argue that both productions renegotiate the adoptive gaze Western European and North American audiences usually impose upon Syrian refugee children. The eight locally cast child actors that played Little Amal across The Jungle ’s original tour produced a Brechtian doubling of performances that complicated violent spectatorial relations, while The Walk ’s twelve-foot-tall puppet of Little Amal resists adoptive logics’ reliance on humanitarian tropes of liminality and minority. Complicating hegemonic binaries of insider/outsider, seeing/being seen, and even life/death, The Jungle and The Walk invite Euro-American onlookers to reconsider their relation to the refugee ‘crisis,’ undercut the individual logic of adoption, and call for a collective response. Little Amal’s (not so) minor encounters, I find, lay bare the inherent theatricality of the current refugee rights paradigm as applied to displaced peoples of all ages. Reclaiming the figurative and embodied potential of the Syrian child refugee, Amal reveals mass displacement to be a shared human phenomenon: already lived by so many, and looming for all.

Varieties of Adlerian Experience

Varieties of Adlerian Experience Erik Mansager (bio) and Dyanne Pienkowski (bio) Inspired by the published celebration in spring 2020 of Adler’s 150th birthday in volume 76 of this journal, your current guest editors wanted to see whether, outside of scholarly articles, the depth and diversity of our community might also be shared. We asked members to contribute their Adlerian stories—what has moved them most deeply about Adler’s writings, philosophy, application, and personal healing. The wide-ranging experiences of the various authors in this issue called to mind William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902/2014). This entire issue is a celebration of sharing professional journeys and sometimes profoundly personal stories about what can happen when Adler’s Individual Psychology comes into focus for an individual. So, read on as one of the contributors to this special issue illustrates the very personal story of experiencing Adler’s theory in real life. It is a fine summary of the wonderful contributions you are about to read: In The Varieties of Religious Experience, the Father of American psychology, William James (1842–1910), considers the word religion and its powerful meanings. To many, the word connotes organized or institutionalized religion and belief in the all-powerful divine! Consider Buddhism, Christianity, or Islam. However, James suggests we also associate the word with our strong, emotional—power-filled—individual belief system that leads, connects or, in Adlerian terms, moves us toward whatever we consider the divine. To James (1902/2014) that can mean, well, practically anything: a belief, for example, not in “a deity in concreto, not a superhuman person, but the immanent divinity in things” (p. 33), including one’s aspirations, which, in Adlerian terms means goals. In essence, The Varieties of Religious Experience focuses on individuals’ deeply personal awakenings—movement—toward their self-perceived ideas of the divine. (Les White, personal communication, November 20, 2020) In fact, the choice of the “Varieties of Adlerian Experience” as a theme was first suggested by Jane Griffith in a touching interchange we had about [End Page 1] Adler’s contributions to Individual Psychology today. She suggested that there were many pluses for invoking William James in an Adlerian context. As the author of The Principles of Psychology (James, 1890/1950), James is credited as breaking psychology away from philosophy, and he was the first to treat psychology as a separate discipline. And, as Les White mentioned, James is considered the “Father of American psychology,” which indicates the importance of this special issue for the North American audience. But mainly, by drawing to mind William James’s popular 1901–1902 Gifford Lectures, published as The Varieties of Religious Experience, Jane indicated that James’s range of individual experiences were so different one from another that some challenged whether they really constituted religion at all. To James’s great credit, he showed that all the experiences were united at the feeling level. Our focus for this issue also acknowledges, by demonstration, how Adler’s theory and therapy have become a pervasive influence across the varied fields of human caregivers today. Rather than lament what has been borrowed from Adler without attribution, this issue celebrates the growth of Adlerian influence along Adler’s original lines as well as among the enthusiasts who incidentally, accidentally, or intentionally attribute their appreciation of Adler to an understanding and practice of his theory and therapy. In doing so, the issue celebrates the self-identified Adlerian. Regarding the scope of this issue, we wanted to include perspectives from the Adlerian psychologist, therapist, counselor, coach, parent educator, teacher, professor, consultant, consumer, and others. To secure this breadth, invitations were made to published Adlerians for the names of those who they believed exemplified an Adlerian spirit. These identified practitioners were invited to share along the following lines: Describe the kind of work you do; identify features in Adlerian Psychology that are most valuable and useful to your particular work; share what and who influenced you most in your Adlerian identity; and cite the top few sources you draw from for your work. So, given the focus, population, and the topics—we needed only respondents. And respond they did! Enough to fill this...

Guest Editor's Introduction: The Ballets Russes in North America

Guest Editor's Introduction: The Ballets Russes in North America

16th Meeting of the Interuniversity Institute of Myology (IIM) - Assisi (Italy), October 17-20, 2019: Foreword, Program and Abstracts

The 16th Meeting of the Interuniversity Institute of Myology (IIM), October 17-20, 2019, Assisi, Italy brought together scientists, pharma and patient organization representatives discussing new results on muscle research. Internationally renowned Keynote speakers presented advances on muscle development, homeostasis, metabolism, and disease. Speakers selected among submitted abstracts presented their new, unpublished data in seven scientific sessions. The remaining abstracts were showcased in two poster sessions. Young trainees where directly involved in the selection of keynote speakers, the organizing scientific sessions and roundtables discussions tailored to the interests of their peers. A broad Italian, European and North-American audience participated to the different initiatives. The meeting allowed muscle biology researchers to discuss ideas and scientific collaborations aimed at better understanding the mechanisms underlaying muscle diseases in order to develop better therapeutic strategies. The active participation of young trainees was facilitated by the friendly and inclusive atmosphere, which fostered lively discussions identifying emerging areas of myology research and stimulated scientific cross-fertilization. The meeting was a success and the IIM community will continue to bring forward significant contributions to the understanding of muscle development and function, the pathogenesis of muscular diseases and the development of novel therapeutic approaches. Here, we report abstracts of the meeting illustrating novel results of basic, translational, and clinical research, which confirms that the Myology field is strong and healthy.

16th Meeting of the Interuniversity Institute of Myology (IIM) - Assisi (Italy), October 17-20, 2019: Foreword, Program and Abstracts.

The 16th Meeting of the Interuniversity Institute of Myology (IIM), October 17-20, 2019, Assisi, Italy brought together scientists, pharma and patient organization representatives discussing new results on muscle research. Internationally renowned Keynote speakers presented advances on muscle development, homeostasis, metabolism, and disease. Speakers selected among submitted abstracts presented their new, unpublished data in seven scientific sessions. The remaining abstracts were showcased in two poster sessions. Young trainees where directly involved in the selection of keynote speakers, the organizing scientific sessions and roundtables discussions tailored to the interests of their peers. A broad Italian, European and North-American audience participated to the different initiatives. The meeting allowed muscle biology researchers to discuss ideas and scientific collaborations aimed at better understanding the mechanisms underlying muscle diseases in order to develop better therapeutic strategies. The active participation of young trainees was facilitated by the friendly and inclusive atmosphere, which fostered lively discussions identifying emerging areas of myology research and stimulated scientific cross-fertilization. The meeting was a success and the IIM community will continue to bring forward significant contributions to the understanding of muscle development and function, the pathogenesis of muscular diseases and the development of novel therapeutic approaches. Here, we report abstracts of the meeting illustrating novel results of basic, translational, and clinical research, which confirms that the Myology field is strong and healthy.

Marginalisation of ‘global South’ epistemics: the case of a soil science textbook

Scientific textbooks are often seen as critical teaching and learning tools for undergraduate students. Furthermore, textbooks can shape and define students’ comprehension and internalisation of academic disciplines. Despite this, textbooks are not necessarily error free. Additionally, textbooks can be laden with hidden representational presumptions and biases, foregrounding a particular culture, knowledge system, or hegemonic world-view. This can include the epistemology of the ‘global North’. How appropriate it is to prescribe such textbooks in the ‘global South’ is, therefore, debatable. Thus, this research represents an attempt to determine the suitability of a soil science textbook – produced in the global North – for use in the global South, specifically the South African context. Accordingly, one particular textbook, in use at some South African universities, was analysed using textual analysis, in order to ascertain its applicability within the context of an Africanised curriculum. The study found that, despite the publisher’s claim of ‘universality’, the book presents soil science knowledge as written with a northern geographical setting in mind and for a Western European or North American audience. Thus, for South Africa, with its radically different geographical, cultural, and soil conditions, the textbook is inappropriate and may even be moulding a particular global North worldview. On this basis it is recommended that academics of the global South adopt a critical approach when selecting textbooks; as well as actively promote and write textbooks directly suited to an African setting.
 
 How to cite this article: 
 MILARAS, Milton; MCKAY, Tracey. Marginalisation of ‘global South’ epistemics: the case of a soil science textbook. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 3, n. 2, p. 31-48. Sept. 2019. Available at: https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=93&path%5B%5D=45
 
 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
 To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North by Ruth H. Sanders

 Reviews e Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North. By R H. S. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. .  pp. £.. ISBN ––––. Ruth H. Sanders is Professor Emerita of German Studies at Miami University, Ohio, where her recent outputs have focused on the popularization of language-learning, and language history. Her latest book takes a similarly didactic approach to the family history of German’s northern neighbours, the languages of Scandinavia. e history and structure of the Scandinavian languages have not wanted for academic coverage over the years. Weighty tomes such as Einar Haugen’s seminal  text e Scandinavian Languages (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press) and Oskar Bandle et al.’s edited volumes, e Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages,  vols (Berlin: de Gruyter, , ), provide detailed coverage of diachronic and genetic developments in the fields of morphology, syntax, and phonology. Yet these are highly specialized works, which for all their academic rigour have limited general appeal. ere is also a wealth of reference material covering almost every eventuality of grammar and usage, from the everyday to the obscure, such as the , third edition of Philip Holmes and Ian Hinchliffe’s Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar (London: Routledge; st edn ). But this too is lacking, for obvious reasons, in the kind of historical and cultural context that might help the wider public to understand how the given languages have developed their current shapes and interrelationships. For readers with a working knowledge of the Scandinavian languages, there are numerous volumes which, collectively at least, provide answers to these questions. For those limited to English, however, there is a glaring gap in the market for an easily accessible overview. At the time of writing, Lars Vikør’s e Nordic Languages: eir Status and Interrelations (Oslo: Novus, ) comes closest, but with almost twenty years having passed since the release of its third and most recent edition, the time is right for an update. At first glance, the volume under review looks like a promising candidate. Sanders’s stated aim is to narrate, ‘primarily for the non-specialist reader, highlights of the shared history from the earliest times’ of the languages of Scandinavia (p. ). Her narrative is openly pitched at the preconceptions and perceptions of a North American audience, but with an appeal broadened by the liberal use of emotive and engaging metaphors and Romantic imagery. Continuing in this cautiously populist furrow, she further limits the focus to ‘crucial intersections, sometimes amounting rather to collisions’ (p. ) between the seven languages of her study. is is a wise move, which frees her from any implied obligation to replicate the structures of more technical, field-specific works. Indeed, Sanders is careful to explain that there is to be no ‘comprehensive, or even chronological account, or typology of each language’ (p. ). It is also reasonable enough, in such a short volume, to avoid treatment of national literatures, which would realistically demand dozens of additional pages. Somewhat less encouragingly, the paring back does not stop there. By MLR, .,   limiting coverage of relevant historical events to ‘brief sketches’ and by deferring responsibility for ‘informative, up-to-date, and expert discussion of [. . .] further aspects of language [to] other specialized books’ (p. ), she may leave the reader wondering what, exactly, she does intend to address. e answer is a surprisingly broad sweep of contextualizing episodes for linguistic development in ‘Scandinavia’, from the prehistoric environment of the North in Chapter , via the Black Death in Chapter , through the Sámi people and language in Chapter , to the obligatory consideration of the continued existence of the languages of Scandinavia in the Epilogue. With only  pages devoted to the main body of text, not all of these issues have been explored in the same detail. e present reviewer would like to have read more about the transformative impact of Old Norse on Old English, for example, to have more than three short sentences on the linguistic consequences of the extended period of Danish influence on Norwegian referred to disparagingly by Norwegian historians as the ‘-Year Night’, or the single page devoted to the long-term challenges facing the languages of Scandinavia today...

The Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North. By Ruth H. Sanders. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 2017. 211 pp. £23.40. ISBN 978-0-226-49389-3

 Reviews e Languages of Scandinavia: Seven Sisters of the North. By R H. S. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. .  pp. £.. ISBN ––––. Ruth H. Sanders is Professor Emerita of German Studies at Miami University, Ohio, where her recent outputs have focused on the popularization of language-learning, and language history. Her latest book takes a similarly didactic approach to the family history of German’s northern neighbours, the languages of Scandinavia. e history and structure of the Scandinavian languages have not wanted for academic coverage over the years. Weighty tomes such as Einar Haugen’s seminal  text e Scandinavian Languages (Cambridge, MA, and London: Harvard University Press) and Oskar Bandle et al.’s edited volumes, e Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages,  vols (Berlin: de Gruyter, , ), provide detailed coverage of diachronic and genetic developments in the fields of morphology, syntax, and phonology. Yet these are highly specialized works, which for all their academic rigour have limited general appeal. ere is also a wealth of reference material covering almost every eventuality of grammar and usage, from the everyday to the obscure, such as the , third edition of Philip Holmes and Ian Hinchliffe’s Swedish: A Comprehensive Grammar (London: Routledge; st edn ). But this too is lacking, for obvious reasons, in the kind of historical and cultural context that might help the wider public to understand how the given languages have developed their current shapes and interrelationships. For readers with a working knowledge of the Scandinavian languages, there are numerous volumes which, collectively at least, provide answers to these questions. For those limited to English, however, there is a glaring gap in the market for an easily accessible overview. At the time of writing, Lars Vikør’s e Nordic Languages: eir Status and Interrelations (Oslo: Novus, ) comes closest, but with almost twenty years having passed since the release of its third and most recent edition, the time is right for an update. At first glance, the volume under review looks like a promising candidate. Sanders’s stated aim is to narrate, ‘primarily for the non-specialist reader, highlights of the shared history from the earliest times’ of the languages of Scandinavia (p. ). Her narrative is openly pitched at the preconceptions and perceptions of a North American audience, but with an appeal broadened by the liberal use of emotive and engaging metaphors and Romantic imagery. Continuing in this cautiously populist furrow, she further limits the focus to ‘crucial intersections, sometimes amounting rather to collisions’ (p. ) between the seven languages of her study. is is a wise move, which frees her from any implied obligation to replicate the structures of more technical, field-specific works. Indeed, Sanders is careful to explain that there is to be no ‘comprehensive, or even chronological account, or typology of each language’ (p. ). It is also reasonable enough, in such a short volume, to avoid treatment of national literatures, which would realistically demand dozens of additional pages. Somewhat less encouragingly, the paring back does not stop there. By MLR, .,   limiting coverage of relevant historical events to ‘brief sketches’ and by deferring responsibility for ‘informative, up-to-date, and expert discussion of [. . .] further aspects of language [to] other specialized books’ (p. ), she may leave the reader wondering what, exactly, she does intend to address. e answer is a surprisingly broad sweep of contextualizing episodes for linguistic development in ‘Scandinavia’, from the prehistoric environment of the North in Chapter , via the Black Death in Chapter , through the Sámi people and language in Chapter , to the obligatory consideration of the continued existence of the languages of Scandinavia in the Epilogue. With only  pages devoted to the main body of text, not all of these issues have been explored in the same detail. e present reviewer would like to have read more about the transformative impact of Old Norse on Old English, for example, to have more than three short sentences on the linguistic consequences of the extended period of Danish influence on Norwegian referred to disparagingly by Norwegian historians as the ‘-Year Night’, or the single page devoted to the long-term challenges facing the languages of Scandinavia today...

Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror, and the Zombie Complex by John Cussans

Reviewed by: Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror, and the Zombie Complex by John Cussans Lucy Swanson Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror, and the Zombie Complex. By John Cussans. London: Strange Attractor, 2017. ISBN 978-1907222474. 404 pp. $26.95 paperback. Zombies and "Voodoo" have long served as a shorthand in Anglo-American popular culture for the supposedly barbaric nature of Haiti and Haitians. In Undead Uprising: Haiti, Horror and the Zombie Complex, John Cussans charts this discursive and thematic network of (pseudo-) ethnographic, journalistic, and cinematic representations of Haiti that has served to dehumanize and demonize the nation since at least the events that began the Haitian Revolution in 1791. Cussans approaches the subject of the zombie and Vodou as a scholar of visual culture with a background in cultural history. He seeks to demystify the portrayal of the nation in films and other cultural products by contextualizing their creation in relation to contemporaneous sociohistorical events that shaped Haitian relations with international powers (primarily the United States and France). Through this examination, Cussans elaborates a theory of the "Zombie Complex" mentioned in his title. He states that it "refers to a range of ethical, psychological, and political thought-problems clustered around the central figure of the living-corpse which, though ostensibly fictional, stubbornly reminds us of the horribly actual limits (or lack of limits) of humanity, the individual and the human" (iv). Through this nexus of ontological questions, he links the "apocalyptic flesh-eating zombie" (100) that emerged with George Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead to the Haitian folkloric living dead figure, typically a passive victim controlled by a zombi master. This research dovetails with Kaiama Glover's recent article "'Flesh like One's Own': Benign Denials of Legitimate Complaint" (Public Culture, 2017), which explores how the cannibal zombie can be related to the abject way Haiti is portrayed in US news media. In the introduction to Undead Uprising, Cussans narrates his interest in the subjects of the book. He cites an early encounter with what he calls "Voodoo-horror" in a Hollywood B-movie, and describes a connection with his doctoral work on imitative behavior in the British "Video Nasty" controversy in the 1980s and in the work of French philosopher Georges Bataille.1 These references reflect the author's methodology, which includes critical analysis of sensationalistic popular culture read through the lens of philosophy and cultural history. Cussans examines the role of mimetic behavior as it relates to the zombie complex, offering a very interesting account of references to the purported role of Mesmerism in the Haitian [End Page 165] Revolution. He examines how the practice—a precursor to hypnotism—arrived in colonial Saint-Domingue, and how it came to be viewed as playing a decisive role in the 1791 revolts inaugurating the revolution. Given his personal and professional background, Cussans identifies himself as "an armchair historian" (vi) of Haiti, yet his work is thoroughly researched and maintains a highly critical eye toward the exoticizing and othering way in which Haitian Vodou is presented in Western media and popular narratives, even those with purported journalistic or objective value. He makes extensive reference to critical work within the field of Haitian studies, which anchors his discourse and helps it to serve as a corrective to the exploitative works he analyzes. Undead Uprising is divided into two parts, each containing four chapters. The first examines the folkloric Haitian zombi, while the other tracks the evolution of the figure into a violent flesh-hungry monster through the vehicle of Romero's Night of the Living Dead. The transition between the two major parts of the book is illustrated by a graph labeled "Axis of Living Death" (220), which offers a visual interpretation of the transformation of the zombie myth. The largely chronological organization allows the reader to better understand the changing but enduring significance of Vodou to representations of Haiti globally. In the first chapter, the author studies William Seabrook's 1929 travelogue The Magic Island, which introduced the zombie to North American audiences. In addition to interrogating the zombie's role as justification for the US Occupation of Haiti, the chapter elaborates on Bataille's significance to the...

Letting skeletons out of the closet: the ethics of displaying ancient Mexican human remains

In the wake of Native North American activism and moves to decolonize archaeology, some academics have begun to avoid displaying human remains. Though recent World Archaeological Congress accords detail a consent process for ethical display, some journals, museums, and individual scholars have blanket policies covering even those remains whose descendants favour display. This article examines one context affected by these policies: the central Mexican town of Xaltocan. Here, Indigenous residents advocate for archaeological study and exhibition of ancient human remains, yet they have been criticised and censored by North American audiences. We consider two factors behind their desire to display the dead as part of efforts to reclaim Indigenous identities: long-standing Mesoamerican relationships with the dead and the materiality and symbolic capital of bones. We argue that an academic reluctance to display any human remains is problematic – even if it is a well-intentioned acknowledgement of respect for their sensitive nature – because it imposes the wishes of one Indigenous group on another, and may thereby lead to the unwitting perpetuation of colonial practice. We suggest that decolonizing archaeology may sometimes necessitate allowing the exhibition of skeletal remains; ethnographic research in individual communities is needed to ensure respect for descendant perspectives.

Plain journalism: The maintenance of a “vocabulary of kinship” in an Amish newspaper

Media may serve as avenues for the expression of common ideals and values that help individuals place themselves in a community of like-minded people. Using Benedict Anderson’s notion of a mediated “vocabulary of kinship” that binds individuals together, this study illustrates the ways the very structure of media content can encourage feelings of commonality. The vehicle for this inquiry is The Budget, a weekly newspaper produced by and for a North American audience of Amish and Mennonite readers. The research suggests that structural aspects of dispatches in The Budget, such as conversational and intentionally informal writing styles, the encouragement of dialog, and use of particular dialects and phrases, reinforce values of familiarity and intimacy that are central to Amish and Mennonite culture.

Selling Authenticity in the Bamum Kingdom in 1929–1930

In February 1930, Eugene Pittard, the director of the ethnological museum in Geneva, sought to expand his museum’s collections in an unusual manner. Instead of sponsoring an expedition to Africa or acquiring objects from former missionaries, instead of buying from established dealers in ethnographic specimens or the newer galleries that specialized in l’art negre, Pittard wrote to an African man in Africa, a Bamum man named Mose Yeyap (Pittard 1930) (Fig. 1).1 Yeyap was the head of the relatively new artisanat in Foumban, a school and artists’ cooperative founded in 1927, and he was known as a key figure for collectors seeking to acquire works of art from the Bamum kingdom. Pittard’s letter explained that he “would like to assemble ... as true a picture as possible of the population of which you are a part, that is to say of the material life of this population. I am sending you by the same post [a list of] the kinds of things that would be the most interesting to have” (Pittard 1930). Pittard explained pointedly, “I insist on one point: Our intent is to have the oldest objects; those which have not been subjected to European influence.” He then listed for Yeyap the kinds of objects he had in mind: “sculpted wood masks, statues, sculpted horns, etc. ... sculpted drums with carved animals or other designs. Miss Debarge [a physician known both to Pittard and Yeyap] showed me drawings on paper that you made of sculptures. Is it possible to have these sculptures themselves?” (Pittard 1930). Pittard’s letter, of course, epitomizes how European arrogance and fantasy informed the collection of African art in the first decades of the twentieth century. Pittard condescendingly and absurdly schooled Yeyap about Yeyap’s own culture and, by privileging his desire for “the oldest objects,” those supposedly untouched by “European influence,” Pittard revealed his adherence to the chimerical “ideal” of African cultures as isolated in time and space. In a fascinating twist, however, we also have Yeyap’s response to Pittard. Yeyap answered back:

The Art of Representing the Other: Industry Personnel in the World Music Industry

Abstract In this article I examine how contemporary world music industry personnel think about developing sounds, images, and stories for European and North American audiences. As they work to represent "the other" in ways that appeal to audiences, are respectful of artists, and are fulfilling to themselves, industry personnel negotiate different ideas concerning what world music is and what makes it valuable, authentic, and real. I analyze how industry personnel manage these varied perspectives on world music as they negotiate the dynamics of representational and interpretive distortion across the schizophonic gap.

Spinal Control: The Rehabilitation of Back Pain, State of the Art and Science

In 2009, a summit of international experts summarized what is known in the rapidly developing area of spine and pelvic pain. These experts were charged with identifying agreements and apparent disagreements in the understanding and interpretation of the research and their implications for clinical practice. In 2010, information from this summit was disseminated to both European and North American audiences in the form of a one-day course. In 2013, the collaborative product of this summit and one-day course—Spinal Control: The Rehabilitation of Back Pain, State of the Art and Science—was published.

Imagining Latin American culture in the United States: Carlos Mérida’s illustrations

Abstract Despite the many exhibitions and catalogues concerning Carlos Mérida’s artistic career, little attention has been focused on Mérida’s numerous book illustrations. During the late 1920s and 1930s, Mérida engaged in several illustration projects for travel guides written for a North American audience, which incorporated imagery from Mexico’s countryside, particularly featuring people wearing folk dress. The travel diary Banana Gold (1932) by Carleton Beals and travel guidebooks by Anita Brenner and Frances Toor were aimed at this burgeoning group of United States travellers. While Mérida utilized a fairly consistent, minimal style for these projects, distinctions in his subject matter concerning banana plantation workers, pre-Columbian imagery and more contemporary folk costumes belie distinctions in Mérida’s intent. In this capacity, Mérida helped to create a sense of Latin American folk culture to a United States public via his illustrations featuring dress.

América Latina-um tema fora da pauta. Uma análise sobre o papel da mídia impressa brasileira no processo de integração latino-americana

El contenido editorial brasileño se construye básicamente a partir de la producción de las grandes agencias transnacionales de noticias. Estas reportan un hecho periodístico orientado hacia lectores norteamericanos y europeos. El advenimiento de internet, que en teoría permite la consulta de fuentes diversificadas de información en incluso el acceso a sitios latinoamericanos, no cambió las rutinas profesionales ni presentó un perfil de informaciones diferenciado a los lectores brasileños. Se escribe poco de los países de la región y lo poco que se dice siempre está cargado de un contexto sensacionalista, grotesco, que privilegia lo negativo.

India for the Masses: the Typical and the Topical in the Murals at the Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-1940)

This paper deals with the representation of India in the murals at San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition (1939-1940) and the codes and examples used by the author Miguel Covarrubias to show the massive North American audience – generally, poorly interested in India – the people, the Art, the native dwellings and means of transportations, the flora and the fauna and the economy of the Indian subcontinent.

“The Gaze of the Natives”: Visualizing Reggae Music as CD Artwork

“The Gaze of the Natives”Visualizing Reggae Music as CD Artwork Andrea Elizabeth Shaw (bio) In An Eye for the Tropics: Tourism, Photography and Framing the Caribbean Picturesque, Krista Thompson explores some of the earliest visual representations of the Anglophone Caribbean. She explains that starting in Jamaica in the late nineteenth century, “proponents of the tourist trade recognized that the idea of Jamaica would have to be reinvented in the imaginations of North American and British audiences.”1 This “reinvention” strategy became necessary in the face of Jamaica’s floundering sugar economy and was crafted with the hope that these newly shaped images of Jamaica would stimulate travel to the island as well as investment and white migration.2 As a result of these objectives, around the turn of the twentieth century, Jamaica underwent a makeover, enabled by photographs that “perpetuated an image of the island as primarily a place of nature and, more specifically, as landscape in which nature displayed the charms of a ‘picturesque tropical garden.’”3 Through images, often on postcards, the island was transformed from a struggling postemancipation economy stifled by “lazy black natives” and an abundance of tropical diseases to a luxuriant and inviting paradise.4 In Consuming the Caribbean, Mimi Sheller also explores the “reinvention” strategies that suffuse portrayals of the region and explains: “It could be argued that there is no ‘primal nature’ in the Caribbean both because so much of it has been constructed by human intervention and because every aspect of it is dosed with a heavy infusion of symbolic meaning and cultural allusions.”5 In other words, representations of the region are all mythic, including those perpetuated by the earliest images. The nineteenth-century Edenic visual interpretation of Jamaica as “picturesque” involved photographically fashioning both the island’s geographic [End Page 33] landscape as well as its inhabitants as either “exotic” or “orderly.”6 Visual renderings of Jamaica shaped by this underpinning desire to showcase the extraordinary and the extra-orderly became manifest in photographs of objects such as highly unusual trees and flawless gardens.7 Additionally, black and East Indian “natives” were posed as if engaged in various productive undertakings; these poses intended to lessen European anxieties about “native” work ethics and cleanliness.8 In “Cane Cutters” and “Banana Carriers,” which appear in Picturesque Jamaica, by A. Duperly and Sons, black men and women are posed with the tools of their labor amidst towering stalks of cane or dutifully balancing bananas on their head while obediently immobilized for the camera.9 A century later, another group of images of black Caribbean bodies has emerged on the global marketplace: CD art on reggae dancehall compilations. These images operate in a similarly performative space as the nineteenth-century Jamaican postcards. The connection between these seemingly disparate visual representations created a century apart, one primarily photographs, the other graphic art, may seem tenuous, but the manner in which the looker interacts with these images is similar. As E. Ann Kaplan points out, “Looking relations are never innocent,” but are shaped by the “cultural systems” of the looker.10 Just as those reinvented images of Jamaica were distributed in the global marketplace of touristic desire in the late eighteen-hundreds to spur a flagging economy, reggae dancehall CD cover art provides another type of “eye for the tropics.” Disseminated globally to generate sales of the music, the graphic designs that adorn reggae dancehall CDs provide an enticing visual peek at the music contained within. Unlike the disciplined black bodies captured in the nineteenth century, the bodies on the CD jackets are disorderly but also configured in poses to inspire consumer desire. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 1. “Cane Cutters.” Photo Courtesy of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), Gainesville. http://www.dloc.com/UF00103316/00001/. Click for larger view View full resolution Fig 2. “Banana Carriers.” Photo Courtesy of the Digital Library of the Caribbean (dLOC), Gainesville. http://www.dloc.com/UF00103316/00001/. This essay explores the cover art on reggae dancehall CDs in an effort to articulate a relationship between these contemporary artistic imaginings [End Page 34] of the Caribbean and earlier efforts to render the region in...

Education: BCIA's Core

The mission of the Biofeedback Certification International Alliance (BCIA) is to certify applicants who demonstrate entry-level knowledge and to progressively recertify them progressively as they expand their knowledge base and skill set through continuing education. BCIA requires accredited coursework to ensure the credibility of its credentials within the insurance and medical communities. Accreditation is provided by regional accrediting bodies, professional organizations, licensing boards, and BCIA itself. BCIA has developed flexible and inexpensive options for earning continuing education to better serve its North American and international audience.