bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Buried History and Transpacific Pedagogy: Teaching the Vietnamese Boat People’s Hong Kong Passage
Authors: Troeung Y-Dang
Published: July 2015

Hong Kong received 223,302 Vietnamese “Boat People” beginning on May 3, 1975. The last camp in Hong Kong, Pillar Point refugee camp, was officially closed on May 31st, 2000, over 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War. The residuals of this violent past continue to haunt the collective memory of the Vietnamese in the diaspora, yet the Boat People’s “Asian passage” remains an untold chapter of Hong Kong’s national history. Exploring the complex relationship between global compassion fatigue, the camp state of exception, and storytelling as a refugee tactic, Vietnamese American writer Andrew Lam’s “The Stories They Carried” recounts the experience of Vietnamese refugees abandoned in Hong Kong throughout the 1980s and 1990s, in extra-territorial limbo between Vietnam and the West. This paper will discuss the experience of teaching Lam’s story to students in the local Hong Kong context, where refugee and asylum seeking policy continues to be a highly charged political topic. I consider the ways in which Lam’s text bears pedagogical resonance across the Pacific, arguing that the teaching of this piece constitutes the remembering of a missing chapter in both the Vietnamese American narrative and the history of Hong Kong.
The Vanuatu “Butterfly Sail”: A Polynesian Oceanic Spritsail in Melanesia
Authors: Di Piazza Anne
Published: July 2015

The butterfly rig, an Oceanic spritsail generally used tacking in a Melanesian world dominated by the shunting Oceanic lateen, is herein examined. The author goes back to original historical and ethnographical sources, particularly those of Layard from central Vanuatu in the early twentieth century, and uses this case to investigate the development of sailing technology in Oceania. It is argued here that although this rig resembles that of the reconstructed Lapita canoe as proposed by archaeologists, the butterfly sail may more convincingly be thought of as an Oceanic spritsail borrowed from Polynesia and adapted to the traditional shunting maneuver. The implications of such a scenario are important for our understanding of design, construction, and performances of ancient canoes. It is probably reasonable to think of Lapita sailors as shunting their lateen rigged outriggers while the Oceanic spritsail and its tacking maneuver were innovated farther east in Polynesia and later in time. In between these two schools of navigation, interaction and borrowing gave birth to a hybrid model: the butterfly sail.
Archaeological History of a Fijian Island: Moturiki, Lomaiviti Group
Authors: Berrocal María Cruz , González Antonio Uriarte , Millerstrom Sidsel , Rodríguez Susana Consuegra , Pérez-Arias Juana , Ormeño Santiago
Published: July 2015

Moturiki is one of the high islands in the Lomaiviti Group, central Fiji. In this article we present exhaustive empirical information on archaeological survey and test pit excavations carried out in 2008 and 2010. An interesting archaeological landscape emerged, with 89 archaeological sites found on Moturiki and neighboring islands Yanuca Levu, Leleuvia, and Caqalai. The sites include ring-ditch villages, terraced villages, isolated house mounds ( yavus ), and burial sites. Results from one of the test pits on the southeast of the island indicate possible landscape changes in the last millennium, since the ancient coastline is currently buried at around 1 m below the surface. This lowland area has therefore received large amounts of sediment from higher areas, a likely result of human activity. We also documented remains from a previously recorded Lapita site in the island. Overall, a shift in the settlement patterns from the coast, to the interior areas, back to the coast, has been documented. This shift, taking place on extremely small islands, can hardly be explained by environmental changes. The article puts together our findings and hypothesis, as well as providing the emphasis of our methodological approach.
Securing the Harmony between the High and the Low: Power Animals and Symbols of Political Authority in Ancient Chinese Jades and Bronzes
Authors: Lopes Rui Oliveira
Published: July 2015

For decades scholars have been discussing the meaning, purpose, and function of the various styles of decoration found in jade and bronze objects produced in the period spanning the Neolithic to the Han dynasty. Max Loehr made a significant contribution to this discussion in 1953 when he made the first attempt to understand the nature and sequence of styles of bronze décor from the Anyang period (1300–1038 b.c .), which corresponds to the late Shang dynasty. Since then scholars have been divided by two different points of view. Taking one side are those who concentrate on the iconographical meaning of the figures represented on the surface of jades and bronzes, suggesting that ornaments are correlated with, and an expression of, a preexistent system of beliefs. On the other side are those who consider the nature and evolution of the sequence of designs and styles as an artistic sophistication that must be considered independently of any exterior motivation, such as a system of religious beliefs. This article aims to explore the purpose and meaning of jade and bronze decorations, particularly those representations of real and mythical animals as forms of spiritual and political empowerment. Through the examination of the nature and sequence of iconographic motifs interpreted as archetypal forms, this article demonstrates the existence of distinct moments for the meaning and purpose of jade and bronze ornaments. During the moments when spirituality and the sacred rituals are dominant and overlap political power, the use of jade and bronze objects decorated with power-animals are manifestations of a system of beliefs. On the other hand, during the moments when political power enlists spirituality and sacred rituals as instruments of sovereignty, the designs tend to be more inventive and sophisticated, corresponding to technological improvements. Consequently, iconographic motifs lose their spiritual meaning and purpose to an immanent sense of design within an artistic phenomenon.
Forgiving Thị Mầu, a Girl Who Dared to Defy: Performance Change and Chèo Theatre in Northern Vietnam
Authors: Meeker Lauren
Published: July 2015

This article discusses differences between professionally staged chèo and village chèo . When chèo moved out of the village communal yards and onto professional stages, dramatic changes were made to performance style and to the audience-performer relationship. This article demonstrates how differences between embodied practices of performance in village chèo and in modern staged chèo reflect broader changes to social values, particularly new ideas about female morality, in contemporary northern Vietnam. The article focuses on the example of shifting attitudes toward and stylistic interpretations of the flirtatious character of Thị Mầu in the classical chèo play Quan Âm—Thị Kính (Goddess of Mercy—Thị Kính).
Chinese Shadow Puppetry’s Changing Apprentice System: Questions of Continuance and a Survey of Remaining Shadow Puppet Practitioners in Mainland China, 2008–2013
Authors: Rollins Annie Katsura
Published: July 2015

Chinese shadow puppetry’s fading master-apprentice system poses urgent questions of how best to ensure the inherited practice is passed to the next generation. With profiles of current Chinese shadow puppet practitioners, this article surveys the spectrum of survival scenarios. Questions of continuance will depend on increased awareness of the form’s tenuous future and increased efficacy of cultural heritage preservation programs, such as UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage project.
The Impossibility of Being Taiwanese in Chi Wei-jan’s Utopia Ltd .
Authors: Lin Wen-ling
Published: July 2015

Utopia Ltd ., written by the important Taiwanese playwright Chi Wei-jan and produced by Creative Society in December 2001, dramatizes the gradual dissolution of a production company named Utopia Ltd. This play explores factors shaping Taiwanese identities and the impossibility of constructing a coherent grand narrative in postmodern, globalized Taiwan. The work stands out among allegories examining post–martial law Taiwan by capturing the complexity of identity formation in Taiwan. The play dramatizes how Taiwan’s colonial past, ethnic tensions, globalization, and relations with China and the United States all work together to shape the national imagination of the island.
The Popular Itinerant Theatre of Maharashtra, 1843–1880
Authors: Kulkarni Kedar A.
Published: July 2015

In this essay, I describe the development of an itinerant theatre tradition in western India between the years 1843 and 1880, recreate a night’s performance, and address various elements of this tradition—the performance, a troupe’s internal dynamics, performance venues, and audience expectations. This was the first popular theatre in western India, relying on a knowing audience who attended the theatre for the familiar plots that unfold through song and representation. Furthermore, as a commercially driven genre, it was not available for appropriation by the rising intelligentsia in India for ideological purposes because such upper-class control would have sacrificed its popularity.
Kōji (Three Tangerines): A Kyōgen from the Ōkura School, Introduction and Translation
Authors: Jenkins Kirsty Marie
Published: July 2015

This article is a translation of the kyōgen play Kōji (Three Tangerines) accompanied by a short introduction on its place within the kyōgen repertoire. The aim of this article is to facilitate cross-cultural studies of kyōgen with Western comedy. To this end, it briefly compares the character of Tarō Kaja with that of the Plautine tricky slave of Roman comedy, indicating the similarity of the master-servant/master-slave relationships to be found in the two comedic types.
Uses of the Sampur in the Halus (Refined) Style of Yogyakarta Court Dance
Authors: Gardner Sally M.
Published: July 2015

In this essay I discuss how a familiar costume element in Javanese court dance, a long piece of patterned cloth known as the sampur , functions poetically through the ways it is used by the dancer. I elaborate on eight categories of use of the sampur , primarily from the point of view of a Western dancer first encountering the techniques of working with the scarf. I draw on scholars and other commentators to discuss the many dimensions of meaning embodied by these uses. The sampur emerges as a dance element rich in virtuosic potential and nuance, and resonant with numerous dimensions of cultural values.
“Beneath the Surface” of Told by the Wind : An Intercultural Experiment in Performance Dramaturgy and Aesthetics
Authors: Zarrilli Phillip
Published: July 2015

This essay provides an introduction to and reflection on an intercultural production ( Told by the Wind ) by the Llanarth Group (Wales, UK) that focused on subtle, underlying issues of dramaturgy and aesthetic principles in performance between East Asian—especially Japanese nō —sources and contemporary psychophysical acting, devising, and writing practices. Included in the essay is a version of the co-created performance score.
Pardeh Khani : A Dramatic Form of Storytelling in Iran
Authors: Lashkari Amir , Kalantari Mojde
Published: July 2015

Pardeh khani (literally, “reading off the screen/curtain”) has been one of the most widely practiced forms of storytelling in Iran and is still occasionally performed. This narration of epic stories painted on a screen is one of the most dramatic forms of story narration and singing in Iran, and its history is traced back before the advent of Islam. Pardeh khani was transformed into a national-religious performance with the advent of Islam and has been influential in the development of ta’zieh (religious drama in commemoration of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom). This study investigates primary elements of the art and performance. Pardeh khani also has direct influence on what is known as “coffeehouse painting.”
The Gaps between Us: Multilingualism and Immigration in Alfian Sa’at’s Cook a Pot of Curry
Authors: Smith Philip
Published: July 2015

This essay examines the role of English, multilingualism, translation, and Singapore’s local creole Singlish in Alfian Sa’at’s play Cook a Pot of Curry (2013). The play is set against a backdrop of Singapore’s National Population and Talent Division’s proposed plan to expedite population growth by granting permanent resident status to between fifteen thousand and twenty-five thousand individuals per year. Alfian captures the anxiety felt by many Singaporeans in anticipation of the immigration boom. Using a multilingual rhetoric characteristic of certain forms of Singaporean theatre since the 1980s, he challenges the Anglo-centric model of Singaporean identity that serves as a central theme in much of this modern anti-foreigner sentiment. Multilingualism and Singlish, Alfian proposes, might offer a means toward intercultural understanding and a way in which “the gaps between” Singaporeans and their foreign neighbors might be bridged.
Three Relations between History and Stage in the Kunju Scene Slaying the Tiger General
Authors: Stenberg Josh
Published: July 2015

The essay examines three relations between history and the stage in a kunju scene. First, the article explores how performance can mold audience experience of history; then how performance illuminates elements of historical processes through the career of the scene as a piece of repertoire; and, third, how performance and historical record might initially generate each other. These three separate relationships between performance and history are examined in the case of a scene known as Slaying the Tiger General ( Ci hu ), which concerns the assassination of a peasant general by a palace maiden during the Ming-Qing transition of the mid seventeenth century. This piece is chosen because of its overt, specific, nonfantastic, and relatively recent historical context, and because its career as an item of repertoire has been affected by the history of the last century. Thus, the three various relations between history and stage that can be examined for any piece of historical theatre are particularly prominent in this piece. Since all three relations interrogate and destabilize the historicity of any given stage content and reveal it as uncertain and constantly renegotiated, the achievement of historical drama lies instead in its ability to generate audience empathy across great temporal distance regardless of its relationship to historical fact.
Decoding Kuo Pao Kun: A Close Reading of No Parking on Odd Days and The Coffin Is Too Big for the Hole
Authors: Shen Levi
Published: July 2015

Two short works of Kuo Pao Kun, a noted Singapore playwright, are analyzed in the context of his use of language and reflection of Singapore culture, arguing that slang demarcates alienation, jargon reveals dehumanization, different coding is used when authority and ordinary people are addressed, and expressions sometimes indicate the opposite of their literal meaning.
Animating the Cinéfils : Alain Resnais and the Cinema of Discovery
Authors: Beckman Karen
Published: July 2015

This article examines the relationship between animation and an idea of cinema as it has evolved in the postwar period, particularly under the influence of the writing of André Bazin. Through close readings of Alain Resnais’s films, as well as their critical reception, the article highlights the great importance of animation, comics, and other ephemeral graphic images to an earlier generation of French critics and filmmakers. Recovering this importance will help us navigate the confusing media landscape we inhabit today and build continuities across apparently distinct aesthetic and historical practices.
Prometheus in Chicago: Film Portrayals of the Chaining and Gagging of Bobby Seale and the “Real-ization” of Resistance
Authors: Burris Greg
Published: July 2015

At the 1969 Chicago Conspiracy Trial, Black Panther Party cofounder Bobby Seale was ordered chained and gagged after asserting the right to represent himself. This article examines film portrayals of this event to trace a lineage of resistance—its conception, its universalization, and its perpetuation across time. By melding together political and psychoanalytic approaches to cinema, I argue that film can serve to imbue Seale’s struggle with lasting relevance, bringing attention to the holes perforating power’s foundations and connecting the oppressions of the past with the oppressions of the present.
Projections of Diasporic Sensibilities through Travel: Wong Kar Wai in/and My Blueberry Nights
Authors: Chew Yi Wei
Published: July 2015

This article argues for My Blueberry Nights as a projection of Wong Kar Wai’s diasporic sensibilities through the trope of travel. How does the film expand and problematize classical notions of diaspora within the discourse of transnational Chinese cinemas? As such, how does it expand the notion of Chinese diasporas within the context and constraints of transnational Chinese cinemas? How does it complicate the already intricate and tangled ideas of movement, stasis, and home? We can only hope to profitably answer these questions by understanding, first of all, the diachronic, multifaceted, and multispatial nature of travel.
“Useful Cinema,” of What Use?: Assessing the Role of Motion Pictures in the Largest Public Relations Campaign of the 1920s
Authors: Monticone Paul
Published: July 2015

Using testimony and subpoenaed exhibits published in the seventy-two-volume record of a Federal Trade Commission investigation, this article traces the role of motion pictures in the private utility industry’s public relations campaign against municipal ownership and federal regulation in the 1920s. This article reconstructs the utility companies’ decision to employ films in its campaign; the production, distribution, and exhibition strategies for its motion pictures; and the relationship of producers to sponsoring organizations. Ultimately, the article argues that the use of film in this campaign was experimental and, relative to other media, limited, but by investigating such experiments with film, we can identify institutional agents struggling to find a “use” for cinema, thereby enabling media historians both to identify what determinants might cause an organization to find cinema more or less useful at different historical moments and to better assess cinema’s changing cultural status and social functions.
New Hollywood in the Rust Belt: Urban Decline and Downtown Renaissance in The King of Marvin Gardens and Rocky
Authors: Webb Lawrence
Published: July 2015

This article reviews the geographical dynamics of New Hollywood, arguing that the industrial crisis of 1969–1971 catalyzed further decentralization of location shooting beyond Los Angeles, bringing new types of urban space into view. It examines the parallel crisis and restructuring of the film industry and the inner city via two films, The King of Marvin Gardens (Bob Rafelson, 1972) and Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976), which are emblematic of distinct phases in the development of New Hollywood. Through their aesthetic strategies, narrative structure, and mapping of cinematic space, these films produced allegories of urban decline and renewal that closely engaged with the transformation of the American city, from the urban crisis of the late 1960s to neoliberal programs of renewal in the late 1970s.
The National Cancer Institute’s Community Networks Program Initiative to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities: Outcomes and Lessons Learned
Authors: Braun Kathryn L. , Stewart Susan , Baquet Claudia , Berry-Bobovski Lisa , Blumenthal Daniel , Brandt Heather M. , Buchwald Dedra S. , Campbell Janis E. , Coe Kathryn , Cooper Leslie C. , Espinoza Paula , Henry-Tillman Ronda , Hargreaves Margaret , James Aimee , Salmon Kaur Judith , Viswanath K. , Ma Grace X. , Mandelblatt Jeanne , Meade Cathy , Ramirez Amelie , Scarinci Isabel , Park Tanjasiri Sora , Thompson Beti , Vines Anissa I. , Dignan Mark
Published: July 2015

Background: We describe reach, partnerships, products, benefits, and lessons learned of the 25 Community Network Programs (CNPs) that applied community-based participatory research (CBPR) to reduce cancer health disparities. Methods: Quantitative and qualitative data were abstracted from CNP final reports. Qualitative data were grouped by theme. Results: Together, the 25 CNPs worked with more than 2,000 academic, clinical, community, government, faith-based, and other partners. They completed 211 needs assessments, leveraged funds for 328 research and service projects, trained 719 new investigators, educated almost 55,000 community members, and published 991 articles. Qualitative data illustrated how use of CBPR improved research methods and participation; improved knowledge, interventions, and outcomes; and built community capacity. Lessons learned related to the need for time to nurture partnerships and the need to attend to community demand for sustained improvements in cancer services. Implications: Findings demonstrate the value of government-supported, community–academic, CBPR partnerships in cancer prevention and control research.
Shifting Community-Based Participatory Infrastructure from Education/Outreach to Research: Challenges and Solutions
Authors: Partridge Edward E. , Hardy Claudia M. , Baskin Monica L. , Fouad Mona , Willis Lillie , James Garrett , Wynn Theresa
Published: July 2015

Background: For 10 years, the Deep South Network for Cancer Control (DSNCC) focused on training and deploying community health advisors (CHAs) to promote cancer screening and healthy lifestyle through education/outreach activities. In 2009, the request for application (RFA) for renewal of the DSNCC required a controlled research intervention. Converting from education/outreach to research proved more problematic than expected. Objectives: The objective of this article was to describe the challenges and solutions during this conversion and to describe the importance of education/outreach to community infrastructure. Methods: This is a qualitative assessment of the challenges and solutions encountered in conducting a controlled weight loss trial in a community setting in which education/outreach had been the priority. Lesson Learned: The DSNCC provides a model for overcoming the unique challenges of converting a longstanding education/outreach program into a controlled research program. Conclusion: Although multiple challenges were encountered in conducting a community-based participatory research (CBPR) controlled trial, solutions were developed and the trial continues as proposed.
Mentoring and Training of Cancer-Related Health Disparities Researchers Committed to Community-Based Participatory Research
Authors: Felder Tisha M. , Braun Kathryn L. , Brandt Heather M. , Khan Samira , Tanjasiri Sora , Friedman Daniela B. , Armstead Cheryl A. , Okuyemi Kolawole S. , Hébert James R.
Published: July 2015

Background and Objective: The National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Community Networks Program Centers (CNPCs) provide community-based participatory research (CBPR)-oriented mentoring and training to prepare early-stage/midcareer investigators and student trainees (trainees) in disparities reduction. This paper describes the academic, mentoring, training, and work–life balance experiences of CNPC-affiliated trainees. Methods: We used a collaborative and iterative process to develop a 57-item, web-based questionnaire completed by trainees from the 23 CNPCs between August 2012 and February 2013. Their CNPC mentors completed a 47-item questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were calculated. Results: The final analytic sample included 189 of 269 individuals (70%) identified as active participants in CNPC research or training/mentoring. Mentors ( n = 45) were mostly non-Hispanic White (77.8%) and 48.9% were male. Mentors published a median of 6 (interquartile range [IQR], 3–12) first-authored and 15 (IQR, 6–25) senior authored manuscripts, and secured 15 (IQR, 11–29) grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other sources in the previous 5 years. Most trainees ( n = 144) were female (79.2%), 43.7% were underrepresented racial/ethnic minorities, and 36.8% were first-generation college graduates. Over the previous 5 years, trainees reported a median of 4 (IQR, 1–6) publications as first author and 4 (IQR, 2–8) as co-author; 27.1% reported having one or more NIH R01s. Trainees reported satisfaction with their CNPC mentor (79.1%) and confidence in demonstrating most CBPR competencies. Conclusion: The CNPC training program consists of a scientifically productive pool of mentors and trainees. Trainees reported rates of scholarly productivity comparable to other national training programs and provided insights into relationships with mentors, academic pressures, and professional–personal life balance.
Fulfilling Ethical Responsibility: Moving Beyond the Minimal Standards of Protecting Human Subjects from Research Harm
Authors: Hébert James R. , Satariano William A. , Friedman Daniela B. , Armstead Cheryl A. , Greiner Allen , Felder Tisha M. , Coggins Thomas A. , Tanjasiri Sora , Braun Kathryn L.
Published: July 2015

Problem: Rules for protecting human subjects, in place federally since 1974, have focused primarily on guarding against placing research subjects at social, physical, or psychological risk or violating their privacy and confidentiality. Nevertheless, high-risk communities are routinely subjected to “sins of omission,” which limit access to potentially significant research opportunities and result in the absence of studies that could confer high degree of community beneficence. Purpose of Article: To describe “sins of omission” and provide examples from the Community Networks Program Centers (CNPC) to illustrate how community-based participatory research (CBPR) can prevent them. Key Points: CBPR is an effective antidote to sins of omission. Activities undertaken by the CNPCs illustrate how adherence to CBPR principles can improve research access and outcomes. Conclusions: By working with community members as partners, we expand the concept of beneficence to include “community beneficence,” thus reducing the probability of “sins of omission.”
Introducing Biospecimen Science to Communities: Tools from Two Cities
Authors: Meade Cathy D. , Rodriguez Elisa M. , Arevalo Mariana , Luque John S. , Harris Narseary , Miguel Gloria San , Gwede Clement K. , Erwin Deborah O.
Published: July 2015

Background: This article describes community-engaged processes employed by two Community Network Program Center (CNPC) sites located in Tampa, Florida, and Buffalo, New York, toward the development of Spanish/English educational products about biobanking and biospecimen research. Methods: Each CNPC carried out a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach that underscored six essential components that moved concepts to a final educational product in a highly participatory fashion. The similar CBPR processes at the two locations focused on the same topic, resulted in different engagement approaches and tools for their respective communities: 1) DVD and brochure toolkit and 2) PowerPoint, group program with audience response system (ARS). Results: We detail a comparison of methods and applications for using these tools among diverse community groups to advance understandings about genetic and biomedical research technologies. Conclusion: Ultimately, these tools and associated educational efforts emphasize the critical value of co-learning among academic and community members in biobanking and biospecimen research.
A Tale of Two Community Networks Program Centers: Operationalizing and Assessing CBPR Principles and Evaluating Partnership Outcomes
Authors: Arroyo-Johnson Cassandra , Allen Michele L. , Colditz Graham A. , Hurtado G. Ali , Davey Cynthia S. , Thompson Vetta L. Sanders , Drake Bettina F. , Svetaz Maria Veronica , Rosas-Lee Maira , Goodman Melody S.
Published: July 2015

Background: Community Networks Program (CNP) centers are required to use a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach within their specific priority communities. Not all communities are the same and unique contextual factors and collaborators’ priorities shape each CBPR partnership. There are also established CBPR and community engagement (CE) principles shown to lead to quality CBPR in any community. However, operationalizing and assessing CBPR principles and partnership outcomes to understand the conditions and processes in CBPR that lead to achieving program and project level goals is relatively new in the science of CBPR. Objectives: We sought to describe the development of surveys on adherence to and implementation of CBPR/CE principles at two CNP centers and examine commonalities and differences in program-versus project-level CBPR evaluation. Methods: A case study about the development and application of CBPR/CE principles for the Missouri CNP, Program for the Elimination of Cancer Disparities , and Minnesota CNP, Padres Informados/Jovenes Preparados , surveys was conducted to compare project versus program operationalization of principles. Survey participant demographics were provided by CNP. Specific domains found in CBPR/CE principles were identified and organized under an existing framework to establish a common ground. Operational definitions and the number of survey items were provided for each domain by CNP. Conclusion: There are distinct differences in operational definitions of CBPR/CE principles at the program and project levels of evaluation. However, commonalities support further research to develop standards for CBPR evaluation across partnerships and at the program and project levels.
Considering the Role of Stress in Populations of High-Risk, Underserved Community Networks Program Centers
Authors: Hébert James R. , Braun Kathryn L. , Kaholokula Joseph Keawe’aimoku , Armstead Cheryl A. , Burch James B. , Thompson Beti
Published: July 2015

Background: Cancer disparities are associated with a broad range of sociocultural determinants of health that operate in community contexts. High-risk populations may be more vulnerable to social and environmental factors that lead to chronic stress. Theoretical and empirical research indicates that exposure to contextual and sociocultural stress alters biological systems, thereby influencing cancer risk, progression, and, ultimately, mortality. Objective: We sought to describe contextual pathways through which stress likely increases cancer risk in high-risk, underserved populations. Methods: This review presents a description of the link between contextual stressors and disease risk disparities within underserved communities, with a focus on 1) stress as a proximal link between biological processes, such as cytokine responses, inflammation, and cancer and 2) stress as a distal link to cancer through biobehavioral risk factors such as poor diet, physical inactivity, circadian rhythm or sleep disruption, and substance abuse. These concepts are illustrated through application to populations served by three National Cancer Institute-funded Community Networks Program Centers (CNPCs): African Americans in the Deep South (the South Carolina Cancer Disparities Community Network [SCCDCN]), Native Hawaiians (’Imi Hale—Native Hawaiian Cancer Network), and Latinos in the Lower Yakima Valley of Washington State (The Center for Hispanic Health Promotion: Reducing Cancer Disparities). Conclusions: Stress experienced by the underserved communities represented in the CNPCs is marked by social, biological, and behavioral pathways that increase cancer risk. A case is presented to increase research on sociocultural determinants of health, stress, and cancer risk among racial/ethnic minorities in underserved communities.
Cancer Screening Utilization Among Immigrant Women in Miami, Florida
Authors: Seay Julia S. , Carrasquillo Olveen , Campos Nicole Gastineau , McCann Sheila , Amofah Anthony , Pierre Larry , Kobetz Erin
Published: July 2015

Background: Routine cancer screening for cervical, breast, and colorectal cancers reduces disease-associated morbidity and mortality through early detection and treatment. Lack of access to health care is a major barrier to screening in immigrant populations. Objectives: We aimed to characterize compliance with national cancer screening guidelines and to assess predictors of screening compliance among women residing in each of two distinct immigrant communities in Miami-Dade County—Little Haiti (Haitian) and Hialeah (Cuban). Methods: Through a collaborative community-based participatory research (CBPR) initiative, researchers, key community stakeholders, and community members developed the study design. Data were collected from a total of 234 women via a rapid assessment survey administered by community health workers (CHWs). Results: Compliance with national screening guidelines for breast, cervical, and colorectal screening was low in both community samples relative to national averages, and for cervical cancer screening was significantly lower in Little Haiti than Hialeah ( p < .01). In addition, knowledge of cervical cancer etiology was significantly greater in Hialeah than in Little Haiti ( p < .01). Health insurance and having a usual source of health care were significant correlates of cancer screening. Conclusion: Given the disparities in cancer screening between our samples and the larger sociodemographic groups in which they are often included, targeted approaches that address structural barriers (lack of health insurance or usual source of care) may improve access to cancer screening among recent immigrants. Community partnerships may be essential in facilitating the interventions needed to overcome cancer-related disparities in these groups.
Targeting and Tailoring Health Communications in Breast Screening Interventions
Authors: Shirazi Mehra , Engelman Kimberly K. , Mbah Olive , Shirazi Aida , Robbins Irma , Bowie Janice , Popal Rona , Wahwasuck Arlene , Whalen-White Denice , Greiner Allen , Dobs Adrian , Bloom Joan
Published: July 2015

Background: Members of underrepresented minority (URM) groups are at higher risk of disproportionately experiencing greater breast cancer-related morbidity and mortality and thus, require effective interventions that both appropriately target and tailor to their unique characteristics. Objectives: We sought to describe the targeting and tailoring practices used in the development and dissemination of three breast cancer screening interventions among URM groups. Methods: Three national Community Network Programs (CNPs) funded by the National Cancer Institute have focused on breast cancer screening interventions as their major research intervention. Each targeted different populations and used participatory research methods to design their intervention tailored to the needs of their respective audience. The Alameda County Network Program (ACNP) to Reduce Cancer Disparities partnered with community members to design and conduct 2-hour “Tea Party” education sessions for Afghan women. The Kansas Community Cancer Disparities Network co-developed and deployed with community members a computerized Healthy Living Kansas (HLK) Breast Health program for rural Latina and American Indian women. The Johns Hopkins Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities employed a train-the-trainer COACH approach to educate urban African-American women about breast cancer. Conclusions: Each CNP program targeted diverse URM women and, using participatory approaches, tailored a range of interventions to promote breast cancer screening. Although all projects shared the same goal outcome, each program tailored their varying interventions to match the target community needs, demonstrating the importance and value of these strategies in reducing breast cancer disparities.
Out in the Classroom: Transgender Student Experiences at a Large Public University
Authors: Pryor Jonathan T.
Published: July 2015

Faculty and peer interactions are 2 of the most important relationships for college students to foster (Astin, 1993). Transgender college students have an increasing visible presence on college campuses (Pusch, 2005), yet limited research exists on their experiences and struggles in the classroom environment (Garvey & Rankin, 2015; Renn, 2010). This study sought to understand the experiences of transgender students in the context of the college classroom and their perceptions of faculty and peer support. The experiences of 5 transgender students from a large Midwest public institution are illustrated by 4 themes that emerged: coming out, instructor interaction, peer (non)support in the classroom, and campus and course context impact college environment. Overall, participants’ experiences varied, but all reported incidents of marginalization from instructors and peers. This study provides a necessary voice to the lived experiences of transgender college students within the context of the university classroom.
The Effects of Fraternity and Sorority Membership in the Fourth Year of College: A Detrimental or Value-Added Component of Undergraduate Education?
Authors: Hevel Michael S. , Martin Georgianna L. , Weeden Dustin D. , Pascarella Ernest T.
Published: July 2015

We use a longitudinal national dataset to explore the direct and conditional effects of fraternity/sorority membership on students’ educational outcomes in the 4th year of college. Controlling for a variety of potentially confounding variables, including pretest measures of the outcomes, we find no direct effect of fraternity/sorority membership on educational outcomes; however, we identify 5 conditional effects related to students’ entering academic abilities and their racial/ethnic identities. We conclude by discussing implications for practice and research.
“Always in My Face”: An Exploration of Social Class Consciousness, Salience, and Values
Authors: Martin Georgianna L.
Published: July 2015

This qualitative study explores social class consciousness, salience, and values of White, low-income, first-generation college students. Overall, participants minimized the salience of social class as an aspect of their identity with many of them expressing that they did not want their social class to define them. Although participants largely did not feel as if social class was an important aspect of their identity, it became clear through their stories that this aspect of their identity influenced how they viewed themselves, the world around them, and their higher SES peers in college. Implications for higher education research and practice are discussed.
Arriving, Surviving, and Succeeding: First-in-Family Women and Their Experiences of Transitioning Into the First Year of University
Authors: O’Shea Sarah
Published: July 2015

This article outlines a qualitative narrative inquiry study conducted within Australia that focused on a group of female students commencing university, all of whom were the first in their family to pursue higher education. During 1 year of academic study, 17 women participated in periodic interviews as each moved through the year. By following the students, the study reveals a very different perspective on the student experience, one that is often missing in policy documents and university discourse, which can place these students within a deficit discourse. Instead, by approaching this topic from a strengths perspective, the intent was to highlight how those in this group persist and engage throughout the year. The semi structured interviews built upon each other, and themes were explored related to how the participants managed their university studies in relation to other competing demands in their lives, as well as how the students reflected upon the transition to university life and the repercussions that this decision provoked. The participants’ reflections reveal an initial disjuncture with the university environment, but as the year proceeded, the narratives highlight changes in personal perceptions from that of exclusion to inclusion.
Bridging the Divide: Developing a Scholarly Habitus for Aspiring Graduate Students Through Summer Bridge Programs Participation
Authors: McCoy Dorian L. , Winkle-Wagner Rachelle
Published: July 2015

This multisite case study explored the role of summer institutes in preparing Students of Color for doctoral programs. Bourdieu’s social reproduction theory, particularly the concept of habitus, was employed as a theoretical framework to investigate how the participants further developed habitus (their dispositions, identities, and perspectives) as scholars. The findings suggest that the summer institutes assisted students in developing a scholarly habitus through fostering confidence, cultivating a passion for scholarship, and identifying as an emerging scholar, while still maintaining their prior backgrounds and identities. We assert that the summer institutes were crucial in helping the students to develop dispositions (habitus) relevant to being a doctoral student.
The Politics of the Pure Language in Seventeenth-Century Quakerism: Speech, Silence, and the Founding of Pennsylvania
Authors: Spar Natalie
Published: July 2015

This article revises a long-standing scholarly assumption that early Quaker language theory and practice attempted to reverse the effects of Babel or transcend language. Examining the writings of George Fox and seventeenth-century theorizations of the silent meeting, it argues that the Society of Friends practiced a silent attention to the “inner light” in order to generate a new kind of speech. Significantly, some Friends saw the primarily religious project of redeeming language as allowing for new political possibilities. When William Penn founded Pennsylvania, he attempted to apply Fox’s principles of the “pure language” to the political infrastructure, ideally creating a community based on linguistic transparency and free from state manipulation through language. Penn used the theory of the pure language to establish freedom of conscience as a central value in his commonwealth.
History, Memory, and the Indian Struggle for Autonomy in the Seventeenth-Century Hudson Valley
Authors: Sellers Jason R.
Published: July 2015

This essay uses treaty records, council minutes, personal correspondence, and travel narratives to argue that Hudson Valley Indians seized on the 1664 English conquest of New Netherland to try to position natives and newcomers as independent members of an extended community sharing a common past and landscape. Formulating a history emphasizing peace, preserving the memory of that past through ritual actions, and involving English colonists in processes that rested on that history, Native Americans sought to integrate the newcomers into their existing network of social relations and a physical landscape that manifested those relations. Meanwhile, English colonists seeking to secure the colony and confirm individual land titles participated in rituals, agreed to treaties, and recorded land purchases in ways that acknowledged Indians’ memories regarding lands and the communities that inhabited them. Though the project ultimately failed, the English conquest of New Netherland briefly introduced the possibility of integrating the newcomers into a larger community of diverse, autonomous peoples connected by a common history embedded in the Hudson Valley’s regional landscape.
A Flâneur in Philly: Class, Gender, Race, and All That Jazz
Authors: Smith Billy G. , Maskiell Michelle
Published: July 2015

Between 1793 and 1797, a British musician who fancied himself a flâneur—a stroller, idler, time waster—moved to the United States to earn his living and travel around the country. William Priest’s letters to England contain insightful comments about urban life in the new nation, observations that the authors amplify and analyze using both newer GIS technology and good, old-fashioned techniques of labor historians. Although he arrived in 1793 in the midst of a severe yellow fever epidemic, Billy Priest, undeterred, walked through Philadelphia, noting a host of details about the nation’s capital, ranging from the conditions of daily life to the consequences of so many deaths caused by the disease. Using city directories, censuses, and tax lists, the essay maps a pre-industrial city in more detail than has ever previously been possible. Neighborhoods are recreated by occupation, race, gender, and commercial development. In addition, the authors examine the beginnings of one of the earliest organized labor movements by shoemakers, the transition in the work lives of middle- and lower-class women, and the struggles of ex-slaves to free themselves and create a vibrant free black urban community.
Martha Bradstreet and the “Epithet of Woman ”: A Story of Land, Libel, Litigation, and Legitimating “Unwomanly” Behavior in the Early Republic
Authors: Blaakman Michael A.
Published: July 2015

Drawing upon a trove of recently discovered primary documents, this microhistorical essay reconstructs the life and legal experiences of Martha Bradstreet, a woman of some pedigree but limited means, who emigrated from Ireland in 1799 to recover a lost landed inheritance in central New York. Over the following three decades, in order to pursue her land claims, Bradstreet separated from and eventually divorced an oppressive husband, exonerated herself of malice charges, forcefully defended her credit and her character, launched dozens of law suits, and strenuously debated attorneys and judges both in court and in print. This essay investigates how Bradstreet justified her actions in a period when conceptions of appropriate gender behavior were narrowing. Bradstreet consistently deployed a creative rhetorical strategy that framed her “unwomanly” acts not as transgressions against the gendered order, but rather as consummately virtuous, maternal, and feminine. By subtly manipulating normative gender ideology, the essay concludes, Bradstreet was able to expand the realm of acceptable female behavior in the spheres of law, credit, reputation, and property.
“The Spirit of Contradiction”: Wife Abuse in New England, 1780–1820
Authors: Ryan Kelly A.
Published: July 2015

In the early republic, abused wives’ petitions for divorce and suits for peace altered community standards regarding domestic abuse. Women’s activities forced society to confront the implications of violence during a time when cultural trends such as companionate marriage and sentimentalism made society receptive to their harrowing narratives. Studying wife abuse shows that women’s political activism was not declining in the early republic – instead, their activism centered on empowering them within the home. Ultimately, women’s combined activities chipped away at legal inequities and provided a crucial staging ground for the advancement of women’s rights.
Toussaint, Gabriel, and Three Finger’d Jack: “Courageous Chiefs” and the “Sacred Standard of Liberty” on the Atlantic Stage
Authors: Gibbs Jenna
Published: July 2015

John Fawcett’s Obi; or Three Finger’d Jack, a pantomime based on a Jamaican slave revolt of 1780 to 1781, took the Atlantic stages just as the Saint Domingue insurrection threatened to engulf the Caribbean and spread to North America. The pantomime debuted in London in 1800 and in Philadelphia in 1801, but was produced and understood quite disparately in the two cities. In London, the pantomime and its blackface hero, Jack, elicited multivalent reactions: anti-slavery sympathy, anti-colonial sentiment, and constructions of Jack as a neo-classical hero. In Philadelphia, by contrast, Obi was performed largely as spectacle, and written reactions construed Jack as a one-dimensional savage villain, probably due to the palpable threat of slave revolt to the city and polity. While the signification of the pantomime and its blackface hero was contingent upon the site-specific performative milieus, even decades after its Atlantic debuts Jack and Toussaint L’Ouverture were still enduringly linked. Transatlantic iterations of Obi were thus both contributors to and barometers of not only the disparate political and cultural pressures of London and Philadelphia, but also the contested meanings of slave revolt as either savage vengeance or the proving ground for human rights and political agency.