That sh*t is rude! Religion, Picture Books, and Social Narratives in Middle School

While the U.S. has a divisive history around the separation of church and state in public school, current national and state teaching standards do include curricular objectives related to the study of religion. This paper focuses on the ways a diverse group of sixth-grade public schoolchildren engaged with religious content in their English Language Arts class. Specifically, it examines the kinds of narratives the children constructed in response to diverse works of public art and children’s picturebooks, including Mora’s (2012) The Beautiful Lady: Our Lady of Guadalupe / La hermosa señora: Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (Señora), and Garza’s (1996) In My Family. The children’s responses disrupt us/Other social narratives and demonstrate the importance of religious literacy in the space of public schools. They push against the notion that acknowledging religious perspectives that are not part of mainstream culture could be offensive to some children. This study reinforces that the interdisciplinary inclusion of religious content in public school not only supports state and national teaching standards, but also opens a space for children to understand the pluralistic society in which they live

Ecological Politics and Practices in Introduced Species Management

The surveillance and control of introduced species has become an increasingly important, yet often controversial, form of environmental management. I investigate why and how introduced species management is initiated; whether, why and how it is contested; and what relations and outcomes emerge ‘in practice’. I examine how introduced species management is being done in the United Kingdom through detailed social scientific analyses of the processes, practices, and disputes involved in a series of management case studies. First, I demonstrate how some established approaches to the design and delivery of management initiatives can render them conflict-prone, ineffective and potentially unjust. Then, examining a disputesurrounding a state-initiated eradication of monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus), I show why and how ‘parakeet protectors’ opposed the initiative. I identify the significance of divergent evaluations of the risks posed by introduced wildlife; personal and community attachments between people and parakeets; and campaigners’ dissatisfaction with central government’s approach to the issue. By following the story of an unauthorised (re)introduction of Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) to England, I show how adiverse collective has, at least temporarily, been united and empowered by a shared understanding of beavers as ‘belonging’ in the UK. I consider how nonhuman citizenship is socio-politically negotiated, and how the beavers have become enrolled in a ‘wild experiment’. Finally, through a multi- sited study of grey squirrel (Sciuruscarolinensis) control initiatives, I find important variations in management practitioners’ approaches to killing squirrels, and identify several ‘modes of killing’ that comprise different primary motivations, moral principles, ultimate aims, and practical methods. I identify multiple ways in which people respond and relate to introduced wildlife, and demonstrate how this multiplicity produces both socio-political tensions and accords. Furthermore, throughout this thesis I make a series of propositions for re-configuring the management of introduced species in ways that explicitly incorporate inclusive, constructive, and context-appropriate socio-political deliberations into its design and implementation.University of Exete

Thylacine Dreams: The Vernacular Resurrection of an Extinct Marsupial

This thesis explores the folk resurrection of the thylacine through artwork and symbolic interaction. The thylacine, better known as the Tasmanian tiger, is a marsupial that suffered a government-sanctioned massacre leading to its extinction in 1936. The thylacine’s status as a hidden animal has inspired what folklorists call “ostensive practice”; people not only actively seek out the thylacine in the wilderness of Tasmania today and share their sightings online, but they have also incorporated the thylacine as a symbol of hope and perseverance into various forms of folk art. There have been upwards of five thousand documented sightings of the thylacine since its extinction. This documentation can take the form of amateur or phone-recorded films, or sightings described in interviews for local news agencies. Some people have even found alleged biological remains of the thylacine and have described hearing its unique call. In addition to these types of legend-tripping activities, the thylacine is also represented in a variety of folk-art forms, including digital, painted, and hand-drawn artwork, written fiction, fiber arts, and costuming. This content is shared widely across the internet. Keeping the thylacine alive through the creation of folk art and legend-tripping search parties helps thylacine enthusiasts cope with the guilt for having lost an ecologically important animal due directly to ignorance and financial gain. If the thylacine is resurrected, whether literally or figuratively, people can symbolically undo some of the damage they have caused the natural world. Thus, the vernacular resurrection of the thylacine, understood through a folklorist lens, offers a model for comparing some of the vernacular ways that people are presently dealing with the general loss of wildlife due to climate change

Newspaper Clippings 1976

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The Cryptid Tourist Gaze: Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting

The Cryptid Tourist Gaze: Cryptid Tourism and the Performance of Monster-Hunting examines different modes of monster-hunting and argues that the ways of hunting for monsters has evolved from major expeditions to cryptid tourism. I devised an original term called the Cryptid Tourist Gaze in order to analyze these different monster-hunting modes. The Cryptid Tourist Gaze is an individual\u27s perspective of and experience with a cryptid monster and reflects how an individual perceives and presents cryptid monsters and cryptid monster experiences. I suggest that individuals now perform monster-hunting through documentary media consumption, festival attendance, and museum curation and visitation, which are all forms of cryptid tourism. I refer to monster-hunting as the act of how an individual or community looks at, lives with, and searches for unexplained, unknown, or unnatural creatures, beasts, and animals and the Cryptid Tourist Gaze is a means by which those acts are performed. This Gaze informs their constructed consciousness of the phenomena of monster sightings and determines the structured reality of their experience of cryptid tourism. Thinking about how these cryptid monsters are presented and represented can lead us to a conversation about why people go looking for these cryptid monsters and how the belief in their existence is perpetuated. The Cryptid Tourist Gaze is a multifaceted concept that I believe sheds new light on monster-hunting and cryptid tourism. Cryptozoological research could lead to one of the most exciting discoveries in history. One of the ways we get closer to that discovery is through cryptid tourism and the performance of cryptid monster-hunting

Popular Rumour in Revolutionary Paris: 1792–1794

Rumours thrive in periods of social and political unrest; the combination of uncertainty and upheaval and a demand for information creates a crucible for the spread of unsubstantiated news. In such situations, even unconfirmed reports serve a purpose, allowing communities to give voice to their anxieties and hopes. An examination of the role and impact of rumour during the French Revolution has the potential to shed new light on the experiences of those who lived through it. Focussing on Paris during the most radical years of Jacobinism, this thesis explores the ways in which informal communication networks helped to shape popular perceptions of the Revolution. Adopting a different approach from George Lefebvre’s classic study, this thesis explores the role of rumour as a phenomenon in itself. It investigates the way in which the informal authority of the on dit (‘they say’) of the street was subject to a range of historical and contemporary prejudices and the extent to which it was monitored by the authorities. Drawing its conclusions from a close reading of the police archives in Paris, this thesis examines the potential of rumour to unite communities but also to divide them, as the power of on dit began to play an important role in denunciations

Science with personality: reality science - the future of science communication

In this sub-thesis I introduce the idea of Reality Science. Reality science involves the telling of personal stories, such as with autobiography, biography, mentoring, documentaries, profiles and public lectures. The importance of reality science in shaping positive stereotypes and perceptions of science is discussed and ways of approaching reality science is given. Reality science can be used to encourage, inspire and inform people of the various roles scientists play and the diversity of science, breaking down stereotypes and normalising science and scientists. Reality science gives us insight into the minds of the scientists and the nature of the science. They inspire people, inform people and create controversy. Reality science is a tool the contemporary scientist can use to encourage new scientists into their field, inform the public about their research in a less typically scientific manner, and inspire their colleagues to do the same. Reality science can contribute to creating a more accurate public perception of science, as more and more realities will create more relevant stereotypes and bridge the gap by creating dialogues; dialogues between author and audience, and between third parties, depending on the type of reality science used. To demonstrate reality science, an artefact is included. This artefact is in the form of a book, and is entitled Colours of the South. This shows how reality science can be used to break down barriers, create new perceptions and encourage engagement with science

Encountering El Tigre : jaguars, knowledge, and discourse in the Western world, 1492-1945

The jaguar is one of the most charismatic species found in the Western Hemisphere, and its presence has long resonated with human communities. Throughout history these large spotted cats have evoked a myriad of responses, from reverence and respect, to fear and disdain. Situated within ongoing re-examinations of the place of animals in public discourse, this dissertation examines representations of jaguars from the fifteenth through twentieth centuries, exploring the ways in which knowledge about this species was constituted in the Western world within the evolution of scientific thought and natural history. Locating the jaguar at the intersections of nature, science, and culture, this dissertation is concerned with the ways this elusive species’ animality was constructed and represented. Records produced by Europeans in the New World demonstrate the dynamic ways in which humans imagined the jaguar’s physical form, interpreted their actions, characterized their feline-ness, and ultimately, attempted to locate these cats within their own notions of natural order. Loaded within these accounts from the outset are notions of value, which are as fluid as the positions these cats occupied in ecological, biological, and imaginary landscapes of the New World. This dissertation examines accounts from prominent explorers, scholars, scientists, authors, and artists, all of whom sought to represent jaguar lives. Drawing from accounts of explorations, guides produced by naturalists, scientific reports, and the letters and journals of those who traveled through the shared margins, these chapters locate the jaguar at the center of its own natural history. These jaguars are a connective thread moving through the span of post-contact natural history, and they keep notable company: from Cortés to Balboa; Alexander von Humboldt to Charles Darwin; and Theodore Roosevelt to Aldo Leopold. All of these men published tales of the jaguar that circulated widely through Western Europe and the United States, playing a significant role in the production of jaguar knowledge. In so doing, the jaguar’s tale become one that operates across scales of time and space, simultaneously immediate and localized within these encounters and yet timeless and global, embedded within global circulations of information and power.Geography and the Environmen

Responsibility, emergency, blame:reporting on migrant deaths on the Mediterranean in the Council of Europe

In 2011 at least 1500 migrants perished in the Mediterranean en route to Europe. In one notable case 63 of 72 passengers of a refugee dinghy died in the course of a two-week drift. Despite communicating distress, they were left to die by passing military vessels and maritime authorities. This article analyzes the inquiry into this case conducted within the Council of Europe as a revealing instance of international human rights supervision. Through a focus on the practice of human rights reporting in instances of multiple institutional and moral failures, it shows how the rapporteur arrived at a politically acceptable account of who was responsible for the boat’s tragedy. Distinguishing between the concepts of responsibility as duty and responsibility as guilt, the article considers the implications of privileging the former over the latter. It argues for a human rights practice that embraces a robust notion of responsibility which combines both

Camas, Fall 1997

Featuring: Neosho / Dan Crockett -- Manu / Christine Paige -- Reflections / Judy Blunt, Ron Carlso