The Ephemeral City : Songs for the Ghost Quarters

The towers of the Stockholm skyline twine with radio transmissions, flying out over the city, drifting down through the streets and sinking into the underground telephone system below. Stockholm has buildings that have been there for centuries, but is also full of modern and contemporary architectures, all jostling for their place in parallel collective memory. In taking the city up as a subject, this artistic PhD project in music expands allegories to these architectural instruments into the world of the mechanical and the electrical. By taking up and transforming the materials of the cityscape, this project spins ephemeral cities more subtle than the colossal forces transforming the cityscape. The aim is to empower urban dwellers with another kind of ownership of their city.The materials in the project are drawn around themes of urban memory and transformation, psychogeography and the ghosts of the imagined city. There are three questions the artistic works of this project reflect on and address. The first is about the ability of city-dwellers to regain or create some sense of place, history or belonging through the power of their imaginations. The second reflects on the possibility for imagined alternatives to re-empower a sense of place for the people who encounter them. The third seeks out the points where stories, memories, or alternative futures are collective, at what point are they wholly individual, and how the interplay between them plays out in listening.There is an improvisatory practice in how we relate to urban environments: an ever-transforming inter-play between the animate and inanimate. Each individual draws phantoms of memory and imagination onto the cityscape, and this yields subtle ways people can be empowered in their surroundings. The artistic works of this project are made to illuminate those subtleties, centering around a group of compositions, improvisations, artistic collaborations and sound installations in music and sound, utilizing modular synthesizers, field recordings, pipe organs, multi-channel settings; PureData and SuperCollider programs, string ensembles with hurdy-gurdy and nyckelharpa or violin, and sound installations. This choice of instruments is as an allegory to the architecture of Stockholm. The final result is a collection of music and sound works, made to illuminate the imagined city. Taken as a whole, the works of the project create an imaginary city–The Ephemeral City–in order to argue that this evocation of ephemeral space is a way to empower urban dwellers through force of imagination, immune to the vast forces tearing through the fabric of Stockholm life by virtue of the ghostly, transitory and mercurial, as compelling to the inner eye as brick and mortar to the outer life

Thinking Clearly on the RSV

Every new translation of the Holy Bible has met with opposition. Whenever a translation is made, the question of its authority as over against the authority of the original or of earlier translations naturally arises. This was the experience of St. Jerome back in the 4th and 5th centuries, when he produced the Vulgate. At first his translation was met with antagonism, and it was even declared to be heretical. This was true particularly also of our beloved, time-honored King James Version. It took nearly half a century for it to find general acceptance, and quite a bit of the original translators’ preface is devoted to its own defense in view of anticipated opposition

From a Child Thou Hast Known the Holy Scriptures

From a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus, St. Paul wrote to Timothy, thereby commending the knowledge of Scripture from childhood. In order to know the Holy Scriptures from childhood, children must have the Scriptures presented to them in such a way that they are able to understand them. Knowledge is based on understanding

Gaining Insight into the Development of Mathematics Teacher Leaders in Primary Grades: A Multi-case Study

Teacher leaders have the potential to influence improved instructional practice for mathematics within elementary schools and thereby student performance. Lamentably, an insufficient number of elementary classroom teachers, specifically those who teach kindergarten, first, and second grades, participate actively in a teacher leader role, which positively impacts teaching and learning mathematics. Therefore, an examination of how professional development plays a role in cultivating new teacher leaders proves to be critical. In this qualitative multi-case study, I examined a structured professional development opportunity for K–2 teachers designed to promote their leadership. All participants were full-time classroom teachers within an urban, Midwestern public school district. The focal questions of this study were: What opportunities and contextual factors do K–2 teacher leaders identify as contributing to their growth as mathematics teacher leaders in mathematics? and In what ways does a structured professional learning opportunity promote mathematics teacher leadership in K–2 teachers? The data analyzed included pre- and post-surveys, written constructed responses, transcripts from semi-structured interviews, field notes from one-on-one meetings, reflective journals, and artifacts obtained during the study. The analysis in this study suggests K–2 teachers identify opportunities and contextual factors that contribute to their growth as teacher leaders of mathematics. Findings suggest primary teacher leaders in mathematics generally have had a personal experience navigating productive struggle as learners of mathematics and have supportive building administrators. In addition, primary teacher leaders view leadership positively and characterize themselves as a leader. I also found a structured professional learning opportunity promotes leadership in K–2 teachers in these ways: (1) the learning experience contributes to growth, (2) professional resources contribute to a deepened understanding of mathematics pedagogy, (3) self-directed professional learning increases learning, and (4) opportunities for strengthening professional networks. Advisors: Wendy M. Smith & Lorraine M. Male

Unabashedly imperfect.

As a child, I have no distinct memories of feeling too fat, too large, or unlovable. Though I grew up in a poor, single-parent family, my mother devoted her life to keeping me from knowing we were poor, teaching me to make better choices in life than she had, and doing all she could to raise a happy, healthy, well-adjusted child. Every life has its troubles, though. After two years of sexual molestation, from age nine to eleven, several years of teasing at a variety of different schools, and the onset of depression during my mid-teens, I learned to hate my body. I blamed my shape and size for all the problems I faced, hid behind various preformed personalities, and told myself that if I could just be skinny, I would be happy. Life did not work that way. The more I attempted to blame my unhappiness on the way I looked, the worse my depression became, which led to cutting, binge eating, bulimic tendencies, and a several broken relationships. It would be in my mid-twenties, after entering graduate school and agreeing to my first polyamorous relationship, that I would discover the depth of my self-hatred and begin the long, arduous process of learning self-love. None of my bad habits would be broken easily, though, and it would take several years of working with a therapist, talking with my family about past hurts, and the support of some very good friends, for me learn that the person I am, inside and out, deserves love, from others and, most importantly, from myself

Essay: Imaginary intersection: Thomas Mofolo, Gertrude Stein and W. E. B. Du Bois

No Abstrac

Does the R.S.V. Mutilate the New Testament Text?

An outstanding feature of the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible is the acknowledged and undeniable fact that its New Testament is based on a much better text than was available to the King James translators in 1607-1611 or to Luther in 1522-1545. The R. S. V. New Testament is essentially a translation of the Greek New Testament used in our colleges and seminaries for the past half century, whether it be the world-renowned edition of Nestle, or that of Westcott and Hort, or, still earlier, that of Tischendorf. Thus the R. S. V. provides pastors with an English New Testament text which is in agreement with their own Greek New Testaments, which they have worked with and studied in the seminaries and still use in their studies and preparations. Many of our laymen are perhaps not aware of underlying differences in the manuscripts of the Greek New Testament text, and thus may be inclined to regard certain K. J. V.-R. S. V. differences as grievous faults. Their distrust of R. S. V. will only increase when well-meaning but uninformed persons point out to them these differences and suggest that the R. S. V. is here guilty of mutilating and corrupting God\u27s Word

Interview with Myrtle Kueker

An interview with Myrtle Kueker regarding her experiences in a one-room school house.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1118/thumbnail.jp