Architecture in Search of Sensory Balance

This thesis addresses the urgent need to awaken our numbed senses by means of haptic architecture. As today's technologies continue to hyper-stimulate and under-differentiate, it is architecture's obligation to resist the resultant de-sensitizing of daily experiences. A return of a multi-sensory and corporeal element to architecture can reveal new possibilities for restoring sensory balance, and for connecting our bodies to our surroundings. Through the authority of all the senses, we may re-discover our human identity within the larger context of the world. The proposed design is a spa health club in downtown Toronto. Throughout history, public baths have been important spaces in cities. Bathers are able to be social or solitary as they choose, while cleansing body and senses. Today, such spaces are lost in the race where thousands upon thousands of advertisements compete for one's imagination. Combining the ancient bath culture with the contemporary fitness culture, the design of the spa health club aims to heighten awareness by engaging the body and all of its senses. Central to the design is an urban public park offering transitory moments of tranquility and sensual pleasure. The spa, with its public park, offers a space that resumes the dialogue between body and space, creating haptic memories and, above all, raising human consciousness

Free Words

"FREE WORDS is a book which belongs to whoever finds it. 3000 copies have been produced by artist Sal Randolph and are being distributed free worldwide. The books are placed on the shelves of bookstores and libraries creating an art situation that infiltrates public and commercial space." -- Artist's website

Memory's Folly: Narrative Trauma in the Aftermath of the Vietnam War

This project explores the ways that narrative trauma was represented in fiction after the Vietnam War. Trauma is not only felt in the survivors of the War but is also inherited by the generations that follow. This inherited trauma is not memory, but something close to it. How does trauma manifest itself in veterans of the Vietnam War, their descendants, and how is it reflected in existing literature? Research was conducted through close textual analyses of works written by survivors of the Vietnam War and select works written by authors who did not experience the War yet take it as their central issue. Additional readings covered combat trauma, memory studies, and postmemory theory. Currently, very little material exists about postmemory in the context of the Vietnam War, however we may extrapolate current postmemorial writings to a Vietnam context. How does Vietnam manifest itself in the memories of the generations following the War? Like the descendants of the Holocaust, it is important to understand how these later generations (both American and Vietnamese) create ownership of memories they did not experience. This research culminated in a novel excerpt about a reporter who, after his father (a Vietnam veteran) dies, seeks answers in another veteran

The Effects of a Wisdom Intervention in a Christian Congregation

Psychological research on the topic of wisdom is limited in its incorporation of religion and spirituality. This gap in psychological literature may serve to limit a thorough understanding of wisdom, which has strong historical and contemporary links to religion and faith communities. Positive psychology, with its interest in both spirituality and wisdom, may allow for some rapprochement in wisdom and spirituality. In collaboration with leaders of a local Friends (Quaker) congregation, this study investigated the effects of a spiritually informed wisdom intervention delivered in the context of a faith community. Participants for the study consisted of 27 young adults (24 completed both the pre and post questionnaire) and a comparison group consisting of 32 young adults. The intervention was designed to increase participants’ abilities in cognitive, affective and moral domains, all of which are essential to the development of wisdom. The cohorts met twice monthly over the course of 3 months and were given assignments between meetings to help promote wisdom. Significant group by time interaction effects were found among measurements of practical wisdom, postformal thinking, and subjective well-being, with those in the experimental group showing changes in the expected direction. Implications are considered

Troubling Disability: Experiences of Disability In, Through, and Around Music

abstract: The purpose of this study was to trouble existing conceptions of disability that ground music education literature and practice. I sought plausible insights into how disability is experienced in, through, and/or around music by participants who are disabled persons/persons with disabilities (DP/PwD). Insights gained might allow readers to complexify and trouble taken-for-granted assumptions about disability. Questions included: (a) How do participants experience disability in, through, and around music? (b) What plausible insights related to disability can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? (c) What plausible insights related to inclusion can be gained by attending to participants’ experiences of disability in, through, and around music? The inquiry approach was grounded in Buberian relational ontology, phenomenology, interactional theories of disability, and narrative. Seven DP/PwD participated in this study: (a) Erica, a 14-year-old diagnosed with a developmental disability of unknown etiology; (b) Duke, a drummer diagnosed with Williams syndrome; (c) Birdie, an abstract visual artist with epilepsy who used music to inform her art; (d) Daren, a b-boy/breakdancer diagnosed with Tourette syndrome, (e) Sienna, a legally blind social work college student who played banjo in a music therapy-based bluegrass band and participated in musical theatre; (f) Ice Queen, an undergraduate flute player recently diagnosed with Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); and (g) Culann, an adult counselor and music listener with ADHD and mood disorders. Data generation included conversational interviews, observations, artmaking, and serendipitous data. Data co-generated with participants were crafted into narratives of their lifeworlds, including description of their experiences with disability in, through, and around music and in other aspects of their lives. An envisioned conversation among all participants demonstrates the shifts and complexities in the meanings of disability and unpacks different ways participants describe and understand disability and the myriad roles that music plays in their lifeworlds. The final chapter of the study offers discussions and suggestions regarding thinking about and approaching disability (i.e., interactional theories, intersectionality, and identity), inclusion (i.e., belonging, suggestions by participants, and anti-ableist pedagogy), and research/writing.Dissertation/ThesisDoctoral Dissertation Music Education 201

Camas, Winter 2007-2008

The Nature of a Literary Journal / Dave Loos -- Thirty Miles of Lead Time / Craig Rigdon -- Coyote Medicine / Merrilyne Lundahl -- On Natural Beauty / Alison Hawthorne Deming -- Finding Numbered Days / Matt Larson -- Ways of a Desert / Jacoba Charles -- Boy Missing Near Judith Gap / Chad Dundas -- Conservatory / M. Frost -- Pegasus in Montana / Alison Hawthorne Deming -- Forest Time / Alison Hawthorne Deming -- Uneasy With Montana / Victor Charlo -- On the Edges of Baranof / Gary Hawk -- The Window / Rick Kempa -- Manicure / Jessica Babcock -- My Hometown Farmer Men / Jessica Babcock -- Devils Tower / Jennifer Johnson -- Conservancy Pines / Jennifer Johnson -- Covenant / Melissa Mylchreest -- Vocabulary Lesson / Melissa Mylchreest -- Near the Base of Juniper Mountain / David Morris -- St. Thomas Reemerges from the Waters of Lake Mead / Cleo Woelfle-Erskine -- Norman Clyde / Paul Willis -- Coyote’s Relinquish Story / Abby Chew -- Cover Photo Nez Perce National Historic Park, Big Hole Battlefield, Montana / Staci Shor

An ethnographic study of violence experienced by Dalit Christian women in Kerala State, India and the implications of this for feminist practical theology

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how experiences of violence, which have been secret in the past, can be articulated that they may become resources for theological reflection and Christian action. The research technique employed is ethnography, which is used to uncover the violence experienced in the lives of Dalit Christian women in Kerala State of India. Part one of this thesis concerns methodology. Chapter two examines how other women theologians working amongst poor and marginalised women from non-western cultures have sought to make women’s experience visible and have emphasised its theological significance. This chapter explores what I can gain from the work of these women that will help me to develop my own research on Dalit Christian women. Chapter three describes the research setting by explaining the context for this research, the researched community of Dalits and the location, where Dalit women gathered together. This chapter demonstrates my relations, as an ethnographer, to Dalit Christian women who have converted to Christianity from the Pulaya caste. Finally, this chapter justifies the research strategies employed in this research. Part two of this thesis contains my field research. Chapter four is about meta-ethnography generated at a one-day seminar and two Bible studies. In chapter five Dalit Christian women, who are the survivors of various kinds of violence, tell their life stories in their own words. In this way Dalit women started to uncover the secret and hidden experience they had in the past. Part three of this thesis is the analysis of data and conclusion. Chapter six analyses the significant themes, which have emerged from my research into the life experiences of Dalit women. It demonstrates that Dalit women’s experience and the cultural traditions of Dalit community are important resources for the development of a Dalit Feminist Practical Theology. Finally, in the light of my research, I make concrete strategies for action that could bring hope and transformation in the lives of Dalit women who are experiencing violence