1811 research outputs found
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Hamilton College Library “Home Notes”
Get PDFCommunal Societies Collection: New Acquisitions
The story of three new books added to the collection with marginalia by 19th-century spiritualist Cyrus Oliver Poole. Davis, Andrew Jackson. The Harbinger of Health: Containing Medical Prescriptions for the Human Body and Mind. New York: A. J. Davis & Co., 1862. Davis, Andrew Jackson. Views of Our Heavenly Home: A Sequel to a Stellar Key to the Summer-Land. Boston: Colby & Rich, 1878. Davis, Andrew Jackson. Beyond the Valley: A Sequel to The Magic Staff : An Autobiography of Andrew Jackson Davis. Boston: Colby & Rich, 1885
Discoursing with an Octopus: Illness as a Theme in Marcel Proust\u27s In Search of Lost Time and its Relation to Conceptions of Art and Transcendence
No full text“Hope on – work ever”: The Valley Forge Community and the Shakers
Get PDFWhen most people hear the words “Valley Forge,” they conjure up pictures of poorly clad Revolutionary War soldiers starving in the backwoods of Pennsylvania while “fat cat” Redcoats feast on the colony’s spoils during the winter social season in Philadelphia. In contrast, very few individuals are aware of the attempt to found a community there during the 1820s that eventually resulted in almost sixty converts to Shakerism. This relatively forgotten chapter in Shaker history, however, is worth a detailed examination. While the Valley Forge community is a mere footnote in the history of communal societies in the United States, for the Shakers it was one of the richest single sources of life-long members
Listening to Reggaetón: The Construction of Panethnicity and Gendered Latinidad in Miami, FL
No full textReggaetón is a popular Latin American music genre that has grown exponentially in terms of commercial success and global recognition. The genre is made up of a mixture of different other Latin American musical genre as well as Hip-Hop and therefore lends itself to the construction of a pan-Latinx identity among consumers of Latin American descent in the United States. This paper examines how consumers use reggeatón to construct a panethnic identity, negotiate their particular ethnic identity with their pan-Latinx identity, and follow gendered scripts of latinidad. Using interview and ethnographic data, this paper will answer a set of related questions. How is reggaetón used to construct a pan-Latinx identity? What are the messages, values, and ideas tied to reggaetón that inform latinidad? How do Latinx consumers perform gendered forms of latinidad legitimated by reggaetón? Prior theoretical work on panethnicity and the construction of gender identity guide these questions. Findings suggest that reggaetón bolsters pan-Latinx identity but does not cancel the importance of the specific ethnic identity. Reggaetón provides consumers with notions of what it means to be Latinx through its associated consumption practices and through the use of Spanish. Finally, reggaetón legitimates certain scripts around Latinx femininity and masculinity
Hyper-Emotion as Disability: Researching Disabilities in the Classical World
No full textDisability is and has always been culturally and historically contingent; each society and culture treats different conditions as disabling. In this paper, I suggest that, in addition to physical and intellectual impairments, the ancient Greeks and Romans considered an abundance of various emotions, which I call “hyper-emotion,” to be disabling. My research focuses on hyper-emotion, which I explain as an abundance of emotion that caused an individual to ignore their responsibilities or violate societal norms. To support this argument I examine a diverse array of primary sources, drawn from mythological literature, medical texts, laws and legal opinions, and philosophical treatises. My argument culminates with a detailed study of Seneca’s Medea, which suggests that an unchecked abundance of numerous emotions determines Medea’s villainous characterization. I combine these primary sources with contemporary critical theory in disability studies. I conclude that disability, as most people think of it, is a construct. In every society, the definition of disability changes to reflect individual cultural values, and the flexibility inherent in disability means that different conditions may be considered disabling in different societies. However, this doesn’t mean that those disabilities are specific to one culture. We find problems with emotional abundance in our own society, but there is no category for emotional disabilities. The radical difference of disabilities in classical antiquity can help us reframe the way in which we approach emotion and disability in modernity
The Maximum Likelihood Degree of Toric Varieties
No full textWe study the maximum likelihood degree (ML degree) of toric varieties, known as discrete exponential models in statistics. By introducing scaling coefficients to the monomial parameterization of the toric variety, one can change the ML degree. We show that the ML degree is equal to the degree of the toric variety for generic scalings, while it drops if and only if the scaling vector is in the locus of the principal A-determinant. We also illustrate how to compute the ML estimate of a toric variety numerically via homotopy continuation from a scaled toric variety with low ML degree. Throughout, we include examples motivated by algebraic geometry and statistics. We compute the ML degree of rational normal scrolls and a large class of Veronese-type varieties. In addition, we investigate the ML degree of scaled Segre varieties, hierarchical loglinear models, and graphical models
Settlement Placement and Socio-Economic Priorities: Dynamic Landscapes in Bronze Age Transylvania
No full textThe Bronze Age was a period of significant socio-economic transformation that gave rise to the first complex regional polities with institutionalized inequality in Europe. Communities in southwest Transylvania, a major source of gold, copper, and salt, played a critical role in this transformation. This article examines how socio-economic changes affected how people situated settlements in resource procurement zones during the Early and Middle Bronze Age (2700–1500 cal. BCE). Taking advantage of the heterogeneous distribution of natural resources across the landscape, a GIS catchment analysis of the orientation of settlements toward particular constellations of resources is presented. Our results show increased preference for access to high quality agricultural land and access to interregional trade through the Mureș River corridor over the course of the Bronze Age. Despite the increased importance of metal within Bronze Age economies, there is no evidence that Transylvanian communities placed their settlements to maximize their ability to contest or secure access to the metal ore sources in the Apuseni Mountains. The organization of settlement systems in the Bronze Age demonstrates that Transylvanian communities prioritized socio-economic institutions beyond metal procurement. This study demonstrates that tracing how humans situate themselves in variable landscapes can provide new insights into the conditions and mechanisms of social change
The Impact of Religious Identity on People’s Experiences Practicing Yoga and Meditation
No full textIn this study, I analyzed different religious and spiritual identities and the effect they have on people experiences practicing yoga or meditation. I found that participants’ religious identities largely determined the nature of their experiences. Religious participants have religious and spiritual experiences, spiritual, but not religious participants have spiritual experiences, and secular participants have secular experiences. Religious and spiritual, but not religious participants often integrate meditation and yoga into their identities and view them as religious or spiritual practices. Despite identifying differently, the religious and spiritual, but not religious groups shared many similar beliefs and experiences
“Calm and rational” or one night of “utter chaos” and “wild fun”? Student orientations toward drinking on campus
No full textWith this study, my main goal is to investigate the reasons why students abstain from drinking on a college campus. However, I compare the different reasons why a college student may decide to drink or not drink in order to see what motivates students to make their decision not to drink. Previous literature suggests that those who drink may be persuaded by peers or the belief that, for instance, drinking might make it easier to meet people. On the other hand, students who do not drink may be following their religious teachings or avoiding risky behavior. To investigate why students decide not to drink, I conducted 12 in-depth interviews with non-drinkers and drinkers at Hamilton College, an elite, mostly secular liberal arts school. In this study, students don’t drink because of the effects of alcohol on their body and mental health and the shared family history of alcoholism. Students who do drink are “moderate” drinkers because they did not want to become dependent on alcohol and have it affect other aspects of their life like their course work, social life, etc