Critique [of Women, Religion, and Peace in an American Indian Ritual by Kristin Herzog]

After a lengthy description of the various facets of Haudosaunee ritual, Kristin Herzog makes some interesting statements on the parallels between our modem day social arguments and those which plagued them centuries ago. The unique feature of Haudosaunec social organization is its systematic balance of power between the sexes. Although it is doubtful that American women who are currently engaged in a struggle for political and social power will achieve quite the same degree of equity, just studying a society in which such a balance was achieved is helpful for those in the process of defining women\u27s goals and objectives

Critique [of Cultural Differences in American and Southeast Asian Children\u27s Psychosocial Development by Jacqueline Ulmen Zbaracki]

Zbaracki\u27s thought provoking discussion suggests one way in which the Southeast Asian, now American, community can enhance our understanding of a world view entirely different from our own and the ways in which it is taught. Their insistence on keeping the young baby, toddler, and pre-schooler in the company of affectionate adults demonstrates their belief in human beings as integral members of a community (or extended family group) first and foremost. Familial bonds in a foreign setting such as the American Mid-west could be seen as one way to give new born children a sense of an ethnic self esteem, a specific Southeast Asian history, and a degree of protection from the alienation and commercial materialism that afflicts middle class American children at comparable ages

[Review of] Rene Philombe. Tales from Cameroon

Tales from Cameroon is Richard Bjornson\u27s translation of two collections of allegories, anecdotes, and short stories by the Cameroonian writer Rene Philombe. Originally composed in French over a twenty year period between the late 1950s and the late 1970s, these fifteen works reveal the human greed, jealousy, and blindness to its own destructive behavior which Philombe believes divides Cameroonians among themselves

[Review of] Ken Goodwin. Understanding African Poetry: A Study of Ten Poets

Understanding African Poetry is a valuable asset to anyone interested in African anglophone poetry. Goodwin offers textual analysis, evaluation, and supplementary contextual information on each of the ten poets he chose to discuss. Much of the analysis shows a keen insight and the contextual commentary is quite informative. However, Goodwin\u27s evaluation reflects his bias towards British and white American concepts of what constitutes good poetry

A Response to Our Own Dogs

In contemporary American Indian songs and stories the Iroquois, Shawnee, and Lakota all voice a rueful hindsight over the hereditary Great Mistake, or the friendship and kindness which their naive, trusting ancestors extended to the pilgrims on the Mayflower

[Review of] Langston Hughes. The Big Sea: An Autobiography

In the last ten years a number of critical studies on the Harlem Renaissance have been published, and these in turn have sparked a revival of interest in the cultural, political, and social activities that took place during the ten-year period in Afroamerican history between 1919 and 1929. There is a renewed interest in the life and writings of Renaissance figures such as Arna Bontemps, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larson, Claude McKay, and Langston Hughes. Hence many of their autobiographies, first published in the 1930s and 1940s, are being reissued in response to the demand for more information on the era when the Negro was in vogue. This latest edition of Hughes\u27s first autobiography The Big Sea is part of this larger revival and follows very closely behind the reprint of his contemporary Zora Neale Hurston\u27s Dust Tracks on a Road (University of Illinois Press, 1986)

Depictions of Elderly Blacks in American Literature

Portraits of elderly Afroamerican men and women abound in American literature and vary from stories which present a mythic primordial character who symbolizes emotional stability, experiential wisdom and a community\u27s cultural and historical heritage, to works in slice-of-life realistic style which dramatize the social and psychological conditions of aged blacks. Included in this second category are works which show the confrontation between old and new social standards. Coupled with this range of portraits is a variety of attitudes toward elderly blacks

Transit timing to first order in eccentricity

Characterization of transiting planets with transit timing variations (TTVs) requires understanding how to translate the observed TTVs into masses and orbital elements of the planets. This can be challenging in multi-planet transiting systems, but fortunately these systems tend to be nearly plane-parallel and low eccentricity. Here we present a novel derivation of analytic formulae for TTVs that are accurate to first order in the planet-star mass ratios and in the orbital eccentricities. These formulae are accurate in proximity to first order resonances, as well as away from resonance, and compare well with more computationally expensive N-body integrations in the low eccentricity, low mass-ratio regime when applied to simulated and to actual multi-transiting Kepler planet systems. We make code available for implementing these formulae.Comment: Revised to match published version; associated code may be found at https://github.com/ericagol/TTVFaste

Healthy Schools Program Evaluation: Year 1 Update

Assesses the early impact of RWJF's program to provide technical assistance, resource brokering, and online tools to help schools promote physical activity and meet healthy foods and beverages standards. Examines improvement levels by school traits

Nematic liquid-crystal alignment on stripe-patterned substrates

Here, we use molecular simulation to consider the behavior of a thin nematic film confined between two identical nanopatterned substrates. Using patterns involving alternating stripes of homeotropic-favoring and homogeneous-favoring substrates, we investigate the influence of the relative stripe width and the film thickness. From this, we show that the polar anchoring angle can be varied continuously from planar to homeotropic by appropriate tuning of these parameters. For very thin films with equal stripe widths, we observe orientational bridging, the surface patterning being written in domains which traverse the nematic film. This dual bridging- domain arrangement breaks down with increase in film thickness, however, being replaced by a single tilted monodomain. Strong azimuthal anchoring in the plane of the stripe boundaries is observed for all systems