Chicana Photography: The Power of Place

Abstract: The concern with space, location, place, and geographic site has received heightened attention from artists and theorists from the 1960s onward. For critics and creators engaged with these concepts, the analysis of the interaction between of the processes of spatialization, identity formation, and memory has emerged as an important aspect of critical discourse. Lucy Lippard defines space as a physical site, understood as landscape or nature, while place implies intimacy, a familiarity with a certain geographic location. For Lippard, human interaction and, most importantly, the infusion of memory into space or a geographic site produces place. Michel de Certeau proposes that everyday practices create a text or unseen pathway in the physical nvironment. People transform space into place through interaction in their daily lived locale. Contemporary Chicana photographers Laura Aguilar, Kathy Vargas, and Delilah Montoya have produced extensive bodies of work during the past four decades that investigate the body, land, memory, and the issues of identity formation in relationship to location. The essay considers each artist in turn and first provides a general overview of each photographer’s art production. The essay then uses Lippard and Certeau’s concepts of space and place to analyze selected images from Aguilar’s Stillness (1999), Motion (1999), and Center (2001), Vargas’ My Alamo (1995), and Delilah Montoya’s Sed: The Trail of Thirst (2004). The work excavates the multiple meanings of the locations and bodies portrayed in these works, and demonstrates how the depiction of geographic space in these artists’ work becomes an intimate, personal site where the construction of places and identities occur

The writing of a play based on the book of Job: the passion of Job

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1659/thumbnail.jp

Spartan Daily, October 5, 2017

Volume 149, Issue 19https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartan_daily_2017/1060/thumbnail.jp

Development of Early Social Interactions in Infants Exposed to Artificial Intelligence from Birth

Research suggests that technology density in a home may change interactions parents and infants in the earliest months of life. This study explored how the use of smart baby technology influenced parental perceptions of development and early social interactions. A qualitative, case methodology was used. The participants in this study were one family with newborn twins. Data was collected over a six month period using journals, field notes, and observations. Thematic coding of these materials was used to answer the questions of the study. Results suggest that use of smart technology supported the emerging parenting skills and allowed the parents to confidently establish care interactions

The Irrational Element of Self and Creation in the Time of the Plague

In this paper I discuss how I went beyond commonplace, rational ways of theater-making and relied on certain “extreme”, irrational gestures to create my production of Charles Mee’s Orestes 2.0. I discuss the circumstances that led me to unlock my subjective artistry, the manner in which I tackled and fulfilled my “directorial concept”, and how I created a production that challenged the tyranny of rationality both on the stage and within the culture of the theater department. I relate personal experiences entering school during a time of national suspicion, and I discuss how a more expansive artistic outlook developed in response to my environment. I go through the execution of my directorial concept and show how I “projected a world” from my interior into the theatrical concrete, drawing on the work of master Polish director Tadeusz Kantor. I describe the “rules” of my theatrical world in terms of its diegetic reality, its method of construction, and its aims. I then describe the rehearsal process, highlighting the ways that irrational methods and a focus on body and imagination drove the process. I discuss my creative state of mind, my performance as the character Farley, and the way in which I hoped authority and sense-making functioned in the audience experience of the performance.Throughout, I accompany my ideas with supporting quotations from Mee’s play and the writing of French theorist, poet, and director Antonin Artaud, situating my use of the power of the irrational inside the theatrical tradition and the play-text

Night Thoughts of a Quantum Physicist

The most dramatic developments in theoretical physics in the next millennium are likely to come when we make progress on so far unresolved foundational questions. In this essay I consider two of the deepest problems confronting us, the measurement problem in quantum theory and the problem of relating consciousness to the rest of physics. I survey some recent promising ideas on possible solutions to the measurement problem and explain what a proper physical understanding of consciousness would involve and why it would need new physics.Comment: Article for "Science Into The Next Millennium", a millennial issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of Londo

The Kabbalah of Forgiveness

The Kabbalah of Forgiveness is a translation of the first chapter of Rabbi Moshe Cordovero’s classic work Date Palm of Devorah (Tomer Devorah) with a commentary by Dr. Henry Abramson. Emerging from the 16th-century Safed Circle of Jewish mystics, this book earned a rare exception to the centuries-old ban on the study of Kabbalah by students under 40 because of its profound ethical value.https://touroscholar.touro.edu/lcas_books/1001/thumbnail.jp

A New Grammar of Images: Werner Herzog and the Contemporary Philosophy of Cinema

In his central mission of working on “a new grammar of images,” the German film director Werner Herzog presents a challenge to the philosophy of cinema. Pairing Herzog’s work with Deleuzian film theory, I argue against the prevalent secondary literature that Herzog’s oeuvre engages with an anti-romantic and non-ironic material philosophy in order to provide ethical challenges to a contemporary, connected world. Specifically focusing on spatiotemporal formations derived from empirical science, I demonstrate that Herzog’s approach to cinema utilizes a four-tiered semiotic that is at its core not merely a film theory, but rather an entire material philosophy of nature with profound ethical and political implications

Equipping the Members to Lead Cell Groups into Emotional Health in the Nonsan Seventh-day Adventist Church in South Korea

Problem Korean society is in a state of serious emotional distress. This is evidenced by the fact that South Korea had the highest suicide rate among the 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for the years 2002-2013. Despite this alarming state of affairs, there has been no extensive or long-term plan incorporated into the discipleship and small group ministries of the Nonsan Seventh-day Adventist Church in South Korea to equip the members with the skill to improve their emotional health. If the members could be equipped with such skills, they would be empowered with the ability to cope with difficult situations with hope, peace, and patience. This in turn will enable and embolden the members to build encouraging relationships with people both in the church and in the community, grow in spiritual maturity, and witness to the eternal gospel manifested in their lives. Therefore, there exists a need to develop a plan to equip the members with the skills to improve their own emotional health to benefit not only themselves but the community around them. Method The BEHOLD Model will equip the Nonsan SDA Church members to lead cell groups into emotional health in the context of Korean culture. This model incorporates a strategy for the members to experience the heart changing power of the love of God by beholding Jesus Christ as the Saviour and Healer every day and by learning the seven principles of emotional health at the weekly cell group meetings. It will take two years for the model to be implemented into the context of the cell group ministry of the church. The first six weeks of the BEHOLD Model will be allocated to prepare the members to be aware of the need for emotional health, and to be ready for the 21-month, seven-stage journey to emotional health. Each three-month stage will supply the individual member with daily devotionals that will guide one’s thoughtful contemplation of the life of Jesus Christ. Learning of the principles will be accomplished during the weekly meetings of the cell group. At the end of the journey, another six weeks will be spent on the evaluation and further development of the project. Results The project is expected to help the members of the Nonsan SDA Church to be equipped to lead cell groups into emotional health. As a result, they will be able to develop the skills to recognize their own emotions, distinguish emotions from sensation, mood, and feeling, feel free, comfortable, and honest with their emotions, discern whether their emotions are healthy or unhealthy, search out the reasons for their emotions, understand the relation between heart, mind, and emotion, change their hearts into accordance with God’s heart, reorient the mind according to the will of God, enjoy an abundant life of healthy emotions, and witness to the reality of Christianity via being known by their healthy emotions in the community. Conclusion The BEHOLD Model is designed to heal the wounded heart and broken spirit instead of each emotion itself, because the heart and spirit are the center of emotional experiences. This project, therefore, focuses on change of the heart and renewal of the mind in terms of the gospel of Christianity. While the Nonsan SDA Church members must learn the skills for emotional health, the hearts of the members need to first be in sympathy with God’s heart of sacrificial love and their minds be renewed into Christ’s mind of humility. Once the Nonsan SDA Church members have healed hearts and renewed minds, the learned skills for emotional health will have lasting benefit in their lives. The healthy emotions abundantly flowing out of their lives will be a blessing to the troubled world around them