Liberal Arts

The Gentle Introduction Resource (GIR) is an open-access web application that offers digital humanities researchers a malleable platform with which they can crowdsource technical material. Such material often poses challenges to the traditional humanities researcher when trying to implement digital layers to his or her research. The Gentle Introduction Resource (GIR) is an open-access web application designed to allow a single classroom or single institution to crowdsource technical information/instruction filtering out the influence of rhetorical analysis. It is written in the Ruby language on the Rails web framework. Though a GIR instance can be invoked to crowdsource primarily web-based information on any dictated theme, though metadata on physical media can be utilized as well. Initializing the GIR creates a private microblog network made up of an administrative super user, general users, and a shared datastream which can then be used to source relevant material. The GIR is also reliant on programmed constraints
decided on by the administrator. Already included constraints include word count (which can be altered), set pagination, and the ability to examine output only from followed users. Topics focused on during a GIR instance can be customized and reconsidered by users during live/in-person sessions, addressing problems with filtration of big data from an exponentially growing number of users inherent in larger, open social networks like twitter. The code running the application is released under an Open Source MIT license that allows for complete code alteration with proper attribution, giving researchers freedom to experiment with the code, to add personalization, and to customize its functionality.

Garrett writes in celebration and respect of African-American and American film, noting beauty, intelligence, purpose--and pleasure; and wanting to support greater explorations.  To that end, he states: There are questions that might enrich our conversations about African-American film:  What is the philosophy of a film, in terms of a fundamental understanding of human existence?  What contribution does the film make to our knowledge of the world?  What is the meaning of the genre of the film; that is, what typically is allowed within that genre and how does the current film under review fulfill, frustrate, or exceed those definitions and expectations?  What is the quality of the film’s script, casting and acting, cinematography, editing, pacing, tone, and musical score?  What does the film suggest about how the world is organized in terms of purpose, power, structures of business and social organizations, schools, religion and religious groups, spiritual resources, the arts, family relationships, daily habits and rituals, and individual priorities?

(Original--and preferred--text here.)

Daniel Garrett discusses Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust and the anthology by Phyllis Klotman of scripts, Screenplays of the African American Experience.  The book Screenplays of the African American Experience is a resource for consideration of the work of significant African-American filmmakers: Bill Gunn (Ganja and Hess), Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep), Kathleen Collins (Losing Ground), Julie Dash (Illusions), Alile Sharon Larkin (A Different Image), and Charles Lane (Sidewalk Stories).  It is a rare collection of the actual scripts of independent African-American films that have made a difference.  The works of the independent filmmakers here, made between 1973 and 1989, are creative, intelligent, personal, each a breakthrough in consciousness and style, and a great foundation for work made in subsequent years: art fed by history and knowledge, art that is honest and sensitive enough to encompass complex characters, facts, and ideas. 

(Original--and preferred--text here.)

Theodor W. Adorno, the towering twentieth century German intellectual figure and distinctive musical thinker, was legendary for being over-critical of jazz music. Through a consideration at his admiration for avant-garde chamber and symphonic music, I plan to develop a position that, surprisingly, points towards a theory of unacknowledged acceptance of jazz. The style of jazz that will be the newly constructed

This article presents Durkheim as a Neo-Kantian social thinker and a source of the theory of emotional contagion. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is examined as Durkheim’s paradigm case of Neo-Kantianism. He is first considered among the intellectual context of French Neo-Kantianism and its figures Charles Renouvier, Émile Boutroux, and Octave Hamelin, all whom were influential in his formative years. Durkheim’s Neo-Kantianism in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is then juxtaposed to the Neo-Kantian legal philosophy of Emil Lask and Hans Kelsen. Agued is that Durkheim’s notions of distortion and emotional contagion are his leading contributions to Neo-Kantianism.

Theodor W. Adorno, the towering twentieth century German intellectual figure and distinctive musical thinker, was legendary for being over-critical of jazz music. Through a consideration at his admiration for avant-garde chamber and symphonic music, I plan to develop a position that, surprisingly, points towards a theory of unacknowledged acceptance of jazz. The style of jazz that will be the newly constructed

This article presents Durkheim as a Neo-Kantian social thinker and a source of the theory of emotional contagion. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is examined as Durkheim’s paradigm case of Neo-Kantianism. He is first considered among the intellectual context of French Neo-Kantianism and its figures Charles Renouvier, Émile Boutroux, and Octave Hamelin, all whom were influential in his formative years. Durkheim’s Neo-Kantianism in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life is then juxtaposed to the Neo-Kantian legal philosophy of Emil Lask and Hans Kelsen. Agued is that Durkheim’s notions of distortion and emotional contagion are his leading contributions to Neo-Kantianism.