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A COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS

Volume 3, 2012-13

Undergraduate

Research

Journal

VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY

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Undergraduate Research Journal

Volume 3 2012-13

Valdosta State University 2013

Faculty Advisor

Anne Greenfield

Managing Editors

Erica Even Megan Shelton

Student Editors

Ryan Ponsell Alex Tostado

Additonal Student Assistants

Ashley B. Dailey Miranda Shepherd

Designer

Jennifer Gleason

Copyright © 2013 by Valdosta State University

Omnino

Volume 3, Number 1 - 2012-2013

Articles

Dominance: The Study of White Representation in Disney’s The    3

Princess and the Frog

Ashley M. Miller

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Corporate-led Globalization: Colonizing the Last Frontier

Micah Pyles

Past Fifteen Years, with Regards to the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown Massacres

Jennifer Dandron

95

They Bleed on Both Sides

Charlotte Grady

The Importance of the Themes in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D    ¹⁰⁵

Major, Op. 35, Movement I

Alex Lipsky

Omnino

Volume 3, Number 1 - 2012-2013

Fluency and Guided Repeated Oral Reading

Sarah Lively

126

147

171

186

205

Effects of Collaboration on Academic Performance: Cognitive Load Theory as an Integral Component of Group Learning

Rachel L. Bradley

Copper Complexes as a Delivery Agent for Medicinal Agents

Melody Sobhani, John Milam, Lakesha Butler, David Jenkins, Iris Rivera, Satilla Johns, Rebekah Graham, Haley Franklin, Dustin Jenkins

The 2012 Charter Schools Constitutional Amendment in Georgia: A Countylevel Analysis of the Election Results

Christopher John May

Effects of Locus of Control and Dream Recall Training on Dreaming

Crystal Logan

Book Reviews

The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell by John Rodden and John Rossi

Reviewed by Erica Even

Witches, Wife Beaters, & Whores Common Law and Common Folk in Early America by Elaine Forman Crane

Reviewed by Megan Shelton

Introduction, by Dr. Anne Greenfield, Faculty Advisor to Omnino

I am very pleased to introduce volume 3 of Omnino, VSU’s undergraduate research journal. This year, Omnino once again offers an impressive body of student research, all of which has been rigorously peer-reviewed by VSU faculty members and edited by VSU undergraduates. We are particularly proud of the wide array of disciplines represented in our pages. In fact, Omnino received an unprecedented thirty-two student submissions this year, thanks to the hard work of the Omnino managing and student editors who reached out to faculty and students, sent emails, handed out fliers, posted signage, and made numerous in-person presentations in classes. This outreach paid off, and we are pleased to publish a robust and diverse array of high-quality undergraduate scholarship this year, stemming from nine different disciplines: Chemistry, Communication Sciences and Disorders, English, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology, and Theatre/Dance. Next year, we would like to see even more students from more departments submit their work to Omnino. In addition to the hard work of the Omnino managing and student editors, I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to the dozens ofVSU faculty members who read, reviewed, and provided feedback on this year’s Omnino submissions. The editors and I appreciate you taking the time out of your already busy schedules to provide this invaluable feedback, without which, none of this would be possible.

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Dominance:

The Study ofWhite Representation in Disney’s The Princess and the Frog

by Ashley M. Miller

Disney is considered an animated powerhouse that has spread its influence across the world. Elena Di Giovanni comments, “The Disney films which portray cultural otherness reveal, better than any other animated product, a good balance between novelty and familiarity, a well-crafted mixture of references to the distant worlds and the modern habits and expressions of the West” (212). Giovanni praises Disney, arguing that, “Disney’s microcosm offers a clever balance between realism and fantasy, novelty and standardization, up-to-date as well as timeless references, thus appealing to young but also adult viewers in every corner of the earth” (207). Like those of many other efficacious producers, Disney films evolved from the classic fairy tale notion of docile females such as Aurora and Snow White to strong heroines like Mulan and Ariel. However, in 2009, Disney released The Princess and the Frog, its adaptation of the Brothers Grimm’s “The Frog Prince,” starring its first ethnic heroes based on fairy tales, Prince Naveen and Tiana, with interesting results. According to Ajay Gehlawat, “Given the amount of hype and anticipation preceding this film, one might assume that Disney paid close attention to its racial dynamics which, paradoxically make them all the more perplexing” (417). As William Blackburn points out, unfortunately, “Despite all its resources and experience [Disney] has failed to create a black princess to rival its [white] predecessors” (qtd. in Lester 305). Ironically, in The Princess and the Frog, Disney reinforces white patriarchal supremacy by presenting a wide variety of different Caucasian cultures from the rich LeBouffs down to the poor Cajun firefly family who all subject the ethnic Tiana and Naveen to tasks and quests

that white privileged princes/princesses would never undertake, thus subverting ethnic representation to the dominant culture’s authority.

The first problem with the film is the issue of setting. According to Gehlawat, “While many critics have noted that the film takes place during ‘the 1920s jazz age in the New Orleans heart of it all,’ few, if any, have noted that this was also the time of Segregation, a period in which those declared ‘Colored’ or ‘Negro’ were relegated to second-class citizenship” (419-20). By choosing a setting where people of color are considered second-class citizens, Disney establishes a world of dominant patriarchal rule. The movie barely acknowledges and tends to selectively ignore or airbrush away “the reality of the 1920s race relations during America’s Jim Crow era, especially anti-miscegenation laws” (Lester 301). Disney’s first African American princess is subjected to and controlled by the white patriarchal system. For example, early in the film, Tiana and her mother, Eudora, are depicted as happy servants to the Le Bouff family. Yes, Eudora is paid for her amazing abilities as a seamstress, but the movie never shows Mr. Le Bouff physically paying her for her services. The action presumably takes place off-screen. Unfortunately, Disney squandered a very genuine opportunity to show an empowered ethnic Eudora. During this time period, some African Americans did own their own businesses, but only in their own neighborhoods. If Mr. Le Bouff had visited Eudora in her neighborhood and physically paid her for her services on-screen, then the racial impact would have empowered the ethnic characters who are supposed to be in the forefront of the film.

In another instance during the beginning of the film, Eudora and Tiana are riding the streetcar to their home. As they leave the Le Bouff neighborhood, a string of almost identical Colonial style houses appears through the window while young Tiana stares in amazement at the affluent houses. Then, Tiana’s neighborhood appears. These houses are small and poorly built and only seem to be inhabited by people of color. Again, Disney misses another fantastic opportunity and subjects itself to historical racial stereotypes for white and black characters. For example, all whites during this period were not wealthy like the La Bouffs. Some even worked as indentured servants. This scene was a perfect chance for Disney to dispel the separation of classes by presenting blacks and whites in a common community buying, selling, and working together despite the implied historical background of separation.

While continuing to follow historical conventions, Disney introduces its traditional princess archetype fairly earlier in the film. Despite not being the main character, from childhood to adulthood, Charlotte is depicted as Disney’s typical blonde-haired and blue-eyed princess archetype, adorned in lavish pink outfits. Despite being wealthy, Le Bouff and Charlotte are represented as benevolent benefactors of the lower class. Their generosity is seen when Charlotte gives Tiana a large sum of money in exchange for making beignets. According to Fabio Parasecoli, “These dynamics reflect the actual distribution of financial power at the time, all while depicting Le Bouff, a sugar baron, and Charlotte as ‘good’ generous white people who are ready to help gifted, well-meaning, and hard-working people of color who otherwise would not have a chance to attain their goals” (462). Therefore, Disney portrays white culture in a positive light. However, not everything is as it appears. As Parasecoli comments, Charlotte’s giving Tiana money reinforces Tiana’s “position as subordinate in order to help her rich white benefactors” (462). Therefore, Tiana is of an inferior class to Charlotte, allowing white culture to display its dominance over an ethnic one.

The Fenner Brothers introduce the mercantile working class concept of white culture. Far from benevolent, the two brothers represent the darker side of capitalism that drives Tiana into working two jobs to achieve her father’s dream of owning a restaurant. However, Tiana is not the first Disney heroine to be forced into labor. For example in Snow White, the stepmother forces Snow White to perform work as a scullery maid. The difference between Tiana and Snow White is that Snow White is forced by the parental obligation to her stepmother, the queen, while Tiana willingly subjects herself to the capitalist system to achieve a dream. Representing a distorted monetary system, the Fenner Brothers’ physical features are grotesque. The smaller brother is grossly overweight with a large round face adorned with a pointed rat-like nose and beady eyes hidden under large-rimmed glasses. The taller brother is rather pencil-like and also has the same pointed rat-like nose, with beady eyes hidden underneath small-rimmed glasses. Physically, these two powerhouse characters are portrayed as unpleasant, which for a moment, establishes that the ethnic Tiana overcomes the white patriarchal system through her beauty. However, this victory is short-lived. While Tiana looks better than the Fenners, she is reminded that she must obey the white culture’s demands in order to receive the sugar mill from them. For example as Gehlawat explains:

She [Tiana] is approached by the Fenner Brothers (jointly filling the costume of an ass) who inform her that she has been outbid [on the sugar mill] and that, unless she can come up with a better offer by the day after, the building will no longer be hers. When Tiana begins to protest, excitedly explaining how long she has had this dream, one of the Fenners replies, “Perhaps a little woman of your.. .background, is better off where you are.” (422)

None of the other Disney princesses have been forced to face their own background because all of them have had the white privilege in society. For example in Snow White, Snow White flees from her mother to the house of the seven dwarfs. The dwarfs do not turn Snow White away because of her background, but encourage her to stay with them. In addition, in Cinderella, Cinderella escapes her mother through her Fairy Godmother who uses magic. Ironically, magic is used in The Princess and the Frog, but instead of aiding Tiana like the magic did for Cinderella, it turns her into a frog. Jason Johnson clarifies, “Tiana is the first African-American princess in the history of Disney animated features and her character is written to accept circumstances that no other Disney princess is expected to experience” (qtd. in Lester 304). Snow White and Cinderella are not expected to experience the transformation from human to frog like Tiana. By having the Fenner Brothers emphasize Tiana’s race or background and the stereotypical limitations associated with it, the white culture again subjects the ethnic one to its own standards. “[She] is painfully reminded of her social condition as both a woman and a person of color.” (Parasecoli 463). The Fenner Brothers refuse to sell the old sugar mill to Tiana because they consider her inferior and unable to run a restaurant by her own merits. Noticeably, the Fenner Brothers are not the only white characters to have grotesque features. Lawrence, Naveen’s butler, also presents white culture as unattractive. Lawrence has the facial features of a gorilla: big ears, a hairy roundish face, and a small, oddly shaped nose. However, despite their lack of looks, the white cultural element easily manipulates Tiana for its own personal goals.

The final representation of white culture appears deep in the bayou. Ray, the firefly, and the hunters both represent the poor, snaggle-tooth swamp billys that at first appear to mock white culture through the stereotypical image of country hicks. Even Prince Naveen says, “Pardon me, but your accent. is funny, no?” (The Princess and the Frog).To which Ray replies with fervor, “Oh, I’m a Cajun, bro! Born n’ bred in the bayou” (The Princess and the Frog). For one moment, Naveen’s ethnic power overcomes the white with the Cajuns because this type of white culture connotes characteristics such as being lazy, toothless, tobacco-chewing, slow, and dumb while Naveen, even as a frog, appears more intelligent and appealing. However, this victory is short lived because Ray ends up leading Naveen and Tiana to Momma Odie, the voodoo priestess. Therefore, Disney subtlety depicts that while Ray may be a dim Cajun, he still has more knowledge than the two ethnic characters who are forced to follow his lead into the swamp.

While following Ray and his family through the swamp, Tiana and Naveen encounter a trio of frog hunters. Ray, who knows the paths of the swamp, knowingly leads the two ethnic characters into this particular section of the swamp. Louis, the alligator, has already pointed out that the swamp provides a sporting ground for hunters. Ray willingly places

Tiana and Naveen in danger and subjects them to white culture once more. The hunters are blundering stooges who at first are unable to catch Naveen and Tiana. However, once again, Disney aggressively demonstrations that even blundering white stooges can outwit ethnic power and culture. This display is seen when Tiana is caught by the hunters. However, the ethnic powers briefly overcome the white culture when Naveen tricks the hunters and rescues Tiana.

Throughout the film, there are many different representations of the white culture while the ethnic is represented by two or three characters. Giana Dandrow explains that, “In the case of visual arts, there is a struggle between the heteronymous (dominant class; those in favor of bourgeois art) and the autonomous (dominated, subordinate class; those in favor of industrial or mass art) principles and power” (26). In The Princess and the Frog, the bourgeois art of the film is the representation of the dominating culture: the white class. Disney aggressively pushes for the white class to overcome the ethnic one in many different forms. First, the rich wealthy class, represented by the Le Bouffs, overcomes the ethnic class symbolized by Tiana. Then, the mercantile class, embodied by the Fenner Brothers, overpowers Tiana again. Finally, even the butler overwhelms the ethnic power when he takes control of Naveen’s physical appearance with voodoo. Whether it is a wealthy plantation owner, a merchant from the working class, or a butler, Tiana and Naveen are subjected to the desires of the white culture and are forced to accept their social limitations.

The second problem with the film can be seen upon examination of the two main ethnic characters, Prince Naveen and Tiana. The first issue examined by many critics about Disney’s film is the lack of princess quality attributed to Tiana. Unlike her white predecessors, Tiana has to undergo and experience situations that none of the princesses have ever had to partake. For example, Snow White’s prince sings to her in the beginning of the film and rescues her from eternal sleep with a romantic kiss. Similar to Snow White, Aurora’s prince in Sleeping Beauty fights a dragon and saves Aurora with a romantic kiss. However, Prince Naveen is far from passionate like other princes. In fact, his kiss turns Tiana into a frog and forces her to undergo physical changes. He is rather rude and unromantic to Tiana in the beginning of the film, and their relationship is far from romantic until the very end when Naveen realizes he has fallen in love, not with a princess, but a waitress. This situation conjures up another issue many have had with the film. As Lester notes, “the first and only African-American princess, unlike other Disney princesses, is not a princess by birth but rather becomes a princess through marriage to a prince” (297). However, Tiana is not the first woman to become a princess through marriage. In fact, Tiana’s princess status mirrors one of Disney’s most successful white female leads, Cinderella, who still is displayed as the predominate princess of all time.

Another concern raised by this film is that Tiana does not get married to a black man similar to how her white predecessors marry their counterpart males. Chelsea Badeau scathingly exclaims, “Why can’t a black man be seen as a hero?. . .Even though there is a real-life black man in the highest office in the land with a black wife, Disney obviously doesn’t think a black man is worthy of the title of prince” (qtd. in Lester 300). This issue of having a non-African American prince raises questions about the race of Prince Naveen. Gehlawat comments:

While it is clear that Naveen is a foreigner, it is, again, unclear exactly where he is from.. .Bearing in mind the (segregated) context of the film and the fact that he is to stay at Charlotte’s house during his visit to New Orleans as the “personal guest” of her father, the implication would seem to be, to paraphrase Fanon, that Naveen is “extremely brown” rather than black.

(423)

Many have thought Naveen and his kingdom to be European because of his pronunciation of certain words and his physical appearance. However, Gehlawat’s question, “Why has Disney gone to such trouble to obfuscate the racial identity of this prince?” implies that Disney does not want to

have an African American prince as the hero of the story (424).

Although Tiana and Prince Naveen are considered different in social standing, both are still subjected to the power of the dominant class. There is a variety of different white cultural representations, including wealthy characters such as Mr. Le Bouff and Charlotte, mercantile class characters such as the Fenner Brothers, poor swamp billy characters such as Ray and the hunters who all subjugate the ethnic Naveen and Tiana to their power in some shape, form, and fashion. Despite Disney’s proclaimed first African American princess, there is no African American prince to stand beside her. Throughout the film, Disney aggressively presents audiences across the world with an image of a powerful white patriarchal system that dominates and will continue to dominate ethnic cultures.

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Works Cited

Dandrow, Gina. “Painting Social Inequality: Social Class, Gender, and the Creation of Cultural Capitol in the Visual Arts.” College of St. Elizabeth Journal of Behavioral Sciences 2 (fall 2008): 25-30. Academic Search    Complete. Web.    17 Nov. 2012.

Di Giovanni, Elena.“Cultural Otherness and Global Communication in Walt Disney Films at the Turn of the Century.” The Translator 9.2 (2003): 207-23. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 Nov. 2012. Gehalwat, Ajay. “The Strange Case of The Princess and the Frog: Passing

and the Elision of Race.” Journal of African American Studies 14.4 (2010): 417-31. Academic Search Complete. Web. 12 Nov. 2012.

Lester, Neal A. “Disney’s The Princess and the Frog: The Pride, the Pressure, and the Politics of Being a First.”Journal of American Culture 33.4 (2010): 294-08. Sociological Collection.Web. 25 Nov. 2012.

Parasecoli, Fabio. “A Taste of Louisiana: Mainstreaming Blackness Through Food in The Princess and the Frog.” Journal of African    American    Studies    14.4    (2010):    450-68.

Sociological Collection. Web. 15 Nov. 2012.

The Princess and the Frog. Dir. Ron Clements and John Musker. Walt Disney Studios, 2010.DVD.Walt Disney Studios Home Theater.

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“Corporate-led Globalization”: Colonizing the Last Frontier

by Micah Pyles

Introduction

The term “globalization” and the counterpart upon which it sustains itself, corporate transnationalism, have come to be understood by a vast majority of the American populace as necessary and inevitable components of global development and modernization.¹ This understanding of corporate-led globalism can be principally attributed to larger socio-political processes through which its emergence is portrayed as lending an invaluable contribution to both the perpetuation of America’s affluence and the establishment of socio-economic innovation and prosperity within developing countries in the global South.² However, a byproduct of globalization that has remained largely unaddressed in the contemporary public discourses of developed nations is the intensification of a wider geo-political system of social hierarchy, in which some nations and their citizenry are deemed less valuable than others. Through this structure of socio-economic and political stratification repressive power relations arise between the global North and South from which, the former reaps a host of inequitable benefits.³ In this way, corporate-led globalization stands as the most overt manifestation of a corrupt and exploitative capitalist system operating under the guise of a sustainable form of global development.

Consequentially, this paper uses a twofold approach that focuses primarily on power relations between the U.S. and Latin America, whose associated dynamics are understood to be indicative of broader geo-political and economic affairs. Therefore, it is the interest of section one to offer an analysis of Latin America which, in the attempt to compete in the global market, is forced to host the predominantly destructive forces of multinational corporations. Further, this section will observe the rise of U.S. corporate power and the subsequent emergence of a culture of capitalism that has permeated all facets of national and international government agencies. In effect, this redirects the central purpose of these agencies to that of policy formation which seeks to establish and maintain the ideal conditions in which transnational corporations (TNCs) may thrive. In this way, such institutions become active agents in the socioeconomic and political oppression of entire nations now forced to contend with the many socio-environmental atrocities disproportionately externalized by a culture of American consumerism.⁴ Section two turns its attention to the United States and to the possibility for collective opposition to a social, economic and political organization that currently serves to maintain the global system. Particular emphasis is given to the state and corporation, which under capitalist culture have come to exhibit a close degree of integration.⁵ Increasingly, this is an association that has come to constitute a circumstance of codependency, in which each entity is virtually synonymous with the other. Yet, with this level of institutional intermingling comes the state’s inability to either challenge or adequately rectify the social embodiment of economic disasters intrinsic to the capitalist system. As a result, mounting social resentment to economic failures in the U.S. are displaced and brought to the political arena where they are pursued as failures within the structure of government. Subsequently, the economic forces that perpetuate an increasingly globalized socio-economic order, and the many abuses produced thereof, remain relatively protected from the potentiality of public castigation. Within this context, layers of complexity are added to a discussion which—through Jurgen Habermas’s theoretical framework—seeks to address how said U.S. organization came to exist, is reproduced, and might be altered.

Section I

In many ways the origins of U.S. corporate power can be traced back to the 1886 Supreme Court ruling which entitled private corporations to all the rights and privileges afforded to a natural person under the Bill of Rights (Robbins 1999). Arguably, this provision resulted from the post-Civil War period, a time of rampant political corruption, in which corporations used massive war profits to buy legislation, providing them “charters in perpetuity” and enormous land and monetary grants, thereby, allowing for far greater capital accumulation and thus, the potential for further penetration into the political process (Robbins 1999).Through this ruling, which legitimized the uninhibited use of corporate finances in influencing state policy and public discourse alike, one can observe the beginnings of a culture of capitalism advocated by neoclassical economics. Resulting from this social shift were two important events: first, the relegation of the state as an instrument of corporate production, which was construed as the only avenue to economic prosperity, second, the creation of the consumer who spurred greater economic output (see Schnaiberg 1980 & Robbins 1999). In subsequent decades, and with the rise of mass media outlets, the propagation of this corporate ideology was greatly intensified, giving way to a culture of American consumerism which viewed its overall welfare to be aligned with and dependent upon the welfare of corporate enterprises and their economic expansion.

Standing on the foundation of ever greater socio-economic and political power, U.S. monopoly capital advanced its private interests by gaining position within numerous international agencies (Robbins 1999). Such agencies include the Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg, and the Trilateral Commission, to name just a few. Within these organizations, private forums are provided in which state and corporate leaders discuss international policy formation conducive to the agenda of economic globalization (Robbins 1999). For example, it was on a recommendation put forth by the Council on Foreign Relations that led to the 1944 Bretton Woods meeting and consequentially to the establishment of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) (Robbins 1999). Both in the formation and operation of these and similar agencies, it is important to underscore the degree of influence exercised by corporations, whose size and economic power now surpasses the majority of member nations; for example, of the world’s one hundred largest economic entities 50 plus are now international corporations—predominantly from the G8 (Robbins 1999).⁶ Also significant is that the World Bank and IMF officially came into existence in order to finance reconstruction in war-ravaged Europe. However, Holland, then engaged in subduing a rebellion in its Asian colonies, was the only country to receive a loan (Robbins 1999).

In an effort to remain relevant in the eyes of the international community the World Bank began to flood periphery nations in the developing world with vast amounts of money in order to modernize their economies; it should be noted that these loans greatly increased U.S. corporate profits who largely supplied the materials and technologies for large-scale national projects (Robbins 1999). However, due to the adjustable interest attached to these loans and the poor economic returns on many of the projects financed, Latin American countries found themselves strapped with enormous debts, many unable to merely pay back quickly accumulating interest. This financial dilemma was in part due to the 1970’s economic recession in the global North, which raised the interest rates on development loans, while simultaneously lowering the demand for whatever commodities the global South was producing (Robbins 1999). Due to the culmination of these factors, the global South’s total periphery debt “increased from $100 billion in 1971 to $600 billion by 1981,” with Brazil’s portion of this debt comprising 31.8% of its gross national product (GNP), 30.5% of Mexico’s GNP and 53.8% of Ecuador’s GNP (Caufield 1996: 134; Robbins 1999).With these events, Latin America was left extremely vulnerable to external economic forces and thus, through policy formation of the IMF, witnessed an unprecedented level of corporate penetration into the region’s markets. As will be discussed, this collaboration would prove to be a key factor in the intensification of unequal power relations between the global North and South.

The agency charged with aiding Latin America in its financial crisis was and still is the IMF, which officially seeks to strengthen the region’s economic infrastructure through the rescheduling of debt payments and the advancement of further loans for modernization. However, when examining the IMF’s current model for socio-economic development one discovers a complete dismantling of local economies; this is achieved through the implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). As discussed by Robinson, SAPs are designed to create favorable conditions in which transnational corporations may thrive, these programs dictate the: “.liberalization of trade and finances., deregulation, which removes the state from economic decision making; and privatization of formerly public spheres.” (2010: 44). As a consequence of such programs, government control of Latin America’s most profitable regional industries is greatly if not entirely diminished. Therefore, South and Central America has experienced a dramatic decline in the power and stability of economic infrastructures, resulting in unprecedented levels of wage loss, wealth and class polarization, unemployment and environmental devastation.

It follows that SAPs are the driving force of corporate transnationalism, their place of origin is the IMF, an international organization directed by a 24-member Board which represents the economic interests of its 188 party members. However, of this board the eight most powerful nations appoint their own representatives, whose votes hold more sway due to their economic viability, a privilege not possessed by the remaining members (Woods & Lombardi 2006).⁷ In a globalizing world, developing or transition economies in need of loans to achieve modernization are subject to the terms and stipulations placed on them by this institution, hence SAPs (Woods & Lombardi 2006). Through the IMF’s enforcement of SAPs, nation states attempting to invigorate and develop local industries are simultaneously forced to open said industries to the privatization of transnational corporations based largely within the lending countries themselves. Therefore, through this agency’s policy formation, one can readily observe the embodiment of principles intrinsic to neoliberal economics as derived through a cultural ideology of corporate libertarianism.⁸

As previously addressed, SAPs are designed to aid in corporate acquisition of the most profitable foreign industries and to remove government from regional economic and administrative affairs. As will be discussed, this process leads to a degradation of the political process and a weakening of economic infrastructures within less developed countries (LDCs). To reiterate, gaining financial assistance from the IMF is contingent on a developing nation’s conformity to SAPs, it follows that these programs stipulate the devaluing of national currencies; which serves to cheapen export goods for consumption abroad, while severely raising the cost of national products for the populace itself (Sernau 2009). In addition, SAPs mandate drastic cuts to government spending on social programs within the countries they are implemented; therefore, state investment in welfare services, public health care and education has dramatically declined. It follows that, as a result of these policies, one is able to observe the paramount role structural adjustment has historically played in deteriorating the standard of living and the number of citizens within these nations that have access to adequate health care services and education. For example, educational attainment in Mexico has remained relatively stagnant over the last several decades with urban children receiving only six years of primary education from the state and rural children most often only three (Sernau 2009). Consequentially, only 27.8 percent of individuals 15 and older have more than a high-school education (INEGL 2000). Further, while these measures were ostensibly being taken in the name of debt reduction and economic stabilization, it is important to underscore that total periphery debt in the global South increased to “well over $2 trillion” by 1994: Brazil’s portion of this debt stagnant at 28.8% GNP, Mexico’s increasing to 35.2% GNP and Ecuador’s increasing to 96.6% GNP (Robbins 1999: 105-106). Therefore, one can clearly discern how the many negative effects experienced by SAP host countries have converged to produce political, economic and social vulnerabilities that are easily exploited by first world nations and the corporate entities that exist therein. Thus is exacerbated a system of geo-social hierarchy, which is a fundamental component in the global North’s ability to externalize its cost of living onto third world nations.

In order to properly address how the previously mentioned aspects of corporate transnationalism come together to produce a system of unequal power arrangements, one must examine the roll of U.S. foreign policy within the region. Due to decades of socio-economic and political oppression, in large part the result of corporate led globalization, South and Central America have experienced an astounding number of social movements that have organized to challenge the many negative effects of neoliberal multinationalism. However, the vast majority of these movements have been suppressed by U.S. intervention. This is done in the effort to protect private and national interests, consequentially leading to the region’s democratization. For instance, in the last 150 years almost every nation in the region has been subject to a U.S. backed unelected political leader, most often being military dictators (Pulsipher 2008). One of many examples is discussed by Howard Zinn: “In Guatemala, in 1954, a legally elected government was overthrown by an invasion force of mercenaries trained by the CIA.. .and supported by four American fighter planes flown by American pilots” (2003: 439).⁹

Subsequently, the U.S. inserted and then backed a series of military dictatorships which, over the next four decades, were responsible for the torture and killing of over 200,000 people (Grandin 2011). This initial U.S. action was largely carried out in order to protect the private interests of United Fruit Company (UFC), which faced the loss of 234,000 acres due to a policy of land redistribution under the former democratically elected government (Zinn 2003). As noted by Chomsky and Zinn, this and many other U.S. interventions often operated under the facade of combating Communism.¹⁰ Yet, in reality such measures more so functioned to neutralize the potential threat of further revolutionary movements, which, encouraged by improving social conditions after the fall of U.S. backed dictatorships, would endanger U.S. corporate industry and landholdings within the region.¹¹ To further illuminate this point, attention should be given to Allen Dulles, who sat on the UFC’s board of directors while simultaneously acting as president of the CIA during Guatemala’s covert dismantling (Streeter 2006). Additional attention should be given to his brother, John Dulles, who was former “chief corporate attorney for UFC” and acting Secretary of State during this U.S. action (Lincoln 2001: 784). In this way it is clearly exemplified that Guatemala’s successes in social policy and land reforms jeopardized U.S. corporate interests and their socio-economic and political domination over the region as a whole.¹² Thus, one can readily observe how the penetration of corporate markets into LDCs is heavily reliant on the strategic implementation of U.S. foreign policies and covert military operations. Further, one can see how this collaboration demonstrates the state’s subordination to corporate interest, which is a fundamental component in the establishment and maintenance of exploitative power arrangements between the global North and South.

Yet, to assume that these unbalanced power relations are the sole result of unilateral actions on behalf of the United States would be to fall prey to an ideology of paternalistic imperialism of which, this project seeks to denounce. Therefore, what role of resistance or complicity can be attributed to Latin America in the historical rise of its current developmental plight? On this subject, Fernando Cardoso, professor of sociology and former president of Brazil (1995-2000), provides substantial insight. In his exploration of developmental trends, Cardoso highlights the role that local elites, internal to the class structure of LDCs, often play in facilitating circumstances of international domination. For instance, he argues that “.external forms of exploitation and coercion. [are often closely associated with]... complex networks of coincident or reconciled interests” between elite class factions within LDCs and those within more developed nations (MDCs) (Cardoso and Faletto 1979: 1516). As posited by Galeano this ruling class structure largely consists of an “industrial bourgeoisie” who—just as in the U.S. either directly or indirectly—exercise substantial power over military and political structures (1997: 213). It is important to note that these ruling classes, and the industries that ensured their societal positions, were heavily reliant on foreign technologies, patents, and private investments, predominantly from the U.S. (Galeano 1997). It follows that with the economic downturn of the 1970s, coupled with the often ubiquitous threat of class based social backlash, dominant class groups saw their long term interest and survival threatened by the potential withdraw of foreign investment and know-how. Consequentially, this class of industrialists sought desperately to maintain its ties with the external technological and economic forces, upon which its existence was dependent. However, with the Latin American debt crisis looming overhead as if an ominous cloud, how would these relationships with foreign investment be maintained? It follows that in order to placate the anxieties of external investors, ruling class factions often played a pivotal role in maneuvering national policy in the direction of IMF loans, “.hoping that the approval.. .[of these loans].. .would build the confidence of foreign investors.” (Robbins 1999: 110; also see Galeano 1997: 205-222). As previously discussed however, these loans mandated the opening of national borders to the “sacred principles of free trade, free competition and the free flow of capital” (Galeano 1997: 221). Thus, while such measures would indeed preserve ruling class interest for many within Latin America it would also come at a price for as Cardoso holds, the very nature of transnational capitalist expansion lends itself to the eventual co-opting of internal dominate groups by external dominant others (1997).

As hoped, with the infusion of new loans from the IMF also came an unprecedented level of private investment, both of which greatly bolstered the production of national industries in Latin America. In this way, ruling class interests and the modes of production that guaranteed their elevated social position were preserved—at least for a while. It is important to remember that with IMF loans come SAPs and that SAPs mandate the liberalization of trade and finance while also removing the state from its regulatory capacities. This translates into the state deregulating its national industrial standards (environmental, labor, wage and safety laws, etc.) while also removing fiscal and customs barriers (tariffs, levies, duties, trade embargoes, etc.) to the benefit of external economic forces (Galeano 1997). These policy changes are what constitute structural adjustment programs, which ultimately leave national borders open to invasion by multinational corporations (MNCs). Once these transnational entities have established a foothold within a given LDC the “unfair. [process].. .of free competition between strong and weak” plays out (Galeano 222). This most often involves the practice of“price dumping,” in which a foreign corporation, being larger and more profitable than its native competitor, enters the market of an LDC and, allowing itself to lose money for multiple years, effectively drives out any national competition.

One of many such examples includes Union Carbide’s acquisition of Adesite, a Brazilian tape manufacture. During the early years of structural adjustment (1970s) Scotch Tape—a part of the U.S. based Union Carbide—arrived in the Brazilian market and “began steadily lowering the price of its products.. .Adesite’s sales kept going down. The banks cut off credit. Scotch Tape continued lowering its prices by 30 percent, then by 40 percent. Then, Union Carbide appeared on the scene and bought the desperate Brazilian concern for a song” (Galeano 1997: 223). Of course, after winning out, Union Carbide then monopolized the market and raised the price of tape by 50 percent in order to compensate for multiple years of profit loss (Galeano 1997). In this way, the vast majority of national industries within Latin America, whether privately owned, state owned or a combination of the two, fell prey to multinational corporations disproportionality from the United States. What then, was the fate of the former “industrial bourgeoisie” after this vicious ph ase of denationalization?

Being more afraid of mass rebellion at home than imperialist domination from abroad, ruling elites most often assimilated into the new industrial model, becoming “agents and functionaries of proponent foreign corporations” (Galeano 1997: 208, 214). Thus the role played by local elites in subordinating their own national sovereignty to the will of international lending institutions and the economic entities they serve is made lucid. What remains of these ruling classes today does indeed constitute internal dominant social factions; however, these are social factions that are in turn dominated from abroad (Galeano 1997). The next logical question that arises, given the continued state of underdevelopment within Latin American, is why hasn’t the IMFs model for economic modernization been successful in its efforts? One primary reason is that the liberalizing policies under SAPs allow for the free flow of capital, therefore, profits made by transnational corporations do not remain in LDCs, but hemorrhage out in whatever fashion so wished by capital controllers. For example, multiple reports by the Economic Commission for Latin

America (ECLA) have shown that the outflow “.of profits from direct U.S. investments in Latin America has been five times greater in recent years than the infusion of new investments”: this is not to mention the fiscal drain resulting from various other international corporations operating in the region (Galeano 1997: 207). In other words, how could any country legitimately be expected to develop when its national industries have been monopolized by external economic forces and when the outflow of national wealth is exponentially higher than that which it is able to retain within its borders. The only logical outcome of this developmental approach is a system of cyclical debt slavery of which MDCs and the corporate enterprises based therein greatly benefit.

In addition to these failures and perhaps standing as the most detrimental aspect of the IMFs model for development is the interstate competition for foreign investment fostered by SAPs. Again, by liberalizing a developing country’s protectionist policies against external economic entities and their entrance into national markets, structural adjustment mandates the free flow of trade and capital. Therefore, those who control large sums of capital, such as MNCs, are afforded the luxury of choosing where they wish to invest, or put another way, in which countries they wish to establish/relocate their corporate operations. This ability allows transnational corporations (capital controllers) to exercise an enormous degree of power over LDCs (Robbins 1999). For instance, the primary concern of a TNC is profit and finding the ideal business climate in which to pursue these profits; similarly, the primary concern for a developing nation under SAPs is to attract foreign investment. Given this reality, multinational corporations possess the ability to demand even further national deregulation within underdeveloped countries; concordantly, these demands trigger a chain reaction of interstate competition between LDCs, each trying to outdo the other in seducing the inflow of external finance (Robbins 1999). In this way, Latin American nations enter into a self-destructive process in which social, economic, environmental and political policy formation is systematically degraded in the name of debt amortization and an ever illusive form of development. Thus the primary function of structural adjustment is made discernible; it provides the initial bombardment to national sovereignty, rendering LDCs virtually defenseless to an onslaught of corporate penetration and subsequent integration within the region.

Through the processes of corporate-led globalization, which operate under the guise of economic restructuring for the advancement of modernization, U.S. private interests are able to benefit from LDCs in multiple ways. As previously addressed, the monopolization of national industries and natural resources within SAP host counties, extracts a highly unbalanced degree of wealth, thereby leaving little to nothing for these countries to develop or sustain themselves upon. Further, SAPs lend themselves to the deregulation of socio-environmental and industrial standards within the nations they are implemented, therefore, allowing LDCs to be utilized as sites and dumping grounds for the destructive “treadmill of production” and consumption.¹³ This thought is perhaps best summarized by the sentiment of Lawrence Summers, former chief economist of the World Bank, who in a leaked memo states: “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs?.. .I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.” (Faber 2008: 178). One must look just south of the U.S. border to witness the manifestation of said “economic logic.” Here, along Mexico’s border, over 2,000 corporate plants operate day and night, taking advantage of the almost non-existent environmental, workers’ rights, and safety regulations that are now commonplace (Faber, 2008, 187). This deregulation results in various border communities being utilized as toxic dumping grounds for corporate production. For example, in the town of “.. .Mata-moros, Mexico, the rate of anencephaly (babies born without brains) is four times the national average [,]” a result of toxic chemicals being illegally dumped within the area (Bullard and Glenn 2000: 572). Such instances, to name just a few, clearly demonstrate how developing nations south of the U.S. border are plagued by cases of environmental injustice, in which—as seen through the lens of capitalist culture—“lesser people” in “lesser nations” are forced to contend with the poisons of corporate production and greed.

Another way that U.S. corporate entities benefit from the economic and political subjugation of LDCs can be exemplified by the transboundary trade of hazardous waste. Regarding this subject, the United States produces 238 million tons annually, making it the world’s largest producer of toxic waste (Faber 2008). The reason to partake in such a trade can largely be traced to the environmental movement (1960s to the present), which resulted in stricter national regulations on the production and disposal of toxic chemicals and bio hazardous materials. Hence, U.S. corporate industries saw a drastic increase in the cost of hazardous waste disposal, and thus, the cost of production itself. In order to compensate for this loss of profit, corporate firms began exporting hazardous wastes to third world nations, which due to the implementation of SAPs and the resulting deregulation of environmental and safety standards absorb said waste at a fraction of the cost otherwise spent (Faber 2008). An additional aspect of this trade is the transnational movement of unsafe and banned pesticides from first world nations—predominantly the U.S. where they are deemed too dangerous for domestic use—to developing countries in the global South. For example, “Nearly 1.1 billion pounds of known or suspected carcinogenic pesticides were exported by the United States between 1997 and 2000, an average rate of almost 16 tons per hour[;]” this is not to mention pesticides produced for strict export, which are predominantly banned in the United States and therefore not required to be assessed or tracked by the EPA (Faber 2008: 188). Through this deplorable practice, U.S. corporations are able to maintain profit flow from the production of chemicals considered unsafe for Americans, but apparently quite safe for those living in the global South. It should be noted that child labor in Latin America is estimated at 17.5 million and that 70 percent of this number work in agricultural production (Sernau 2009). Thus is demonstrated a blatant manifestation of a wider geo-political system of social hierarchy that stems from the processes of corporate led globalization, one that results in the annual death of over 300,000 people in the global South, the majority of which are children (Faber 2008).

Due to this evidence, it is quite apparent that the current trend of corporate-led globalization is anything but a sustainable form of global development. To the contrary, this process has facilitated the intensification of uneven power arrangements between the global North and South, in this way, further destabilizing foreign socio-economic and political institutions and thus the ecological systems in which they exist. In the attempt to ascertain a sustainable form of modernization, one is forced to offer sharp critique of the IMF; this institution’s current power structure blatantly marginalizes underdeveloped nations, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. For instance, within the IMF less influential countries are forced to group together and form constituencies that are represented by only one director, the largest of these groups consists of 24 nations, yet possesses a mere “1.42% of total voting power” (Woods and Lombardi 2006: 482). Therefore, the terms in which LDCs enter the global economy are dictated, resulting in a state of economic subjugation or, to be more accurate, neocolonial rule of which the global north and transnational corporations based therein benefit. In other words, within the IMF there exists a clear and concerning contradiction in its stated mission to equally represent all economic interests of its party members. In the case of Latin America, several decades of socio-economic and political decline marked by the IMFs implementation of SAPs lends credence to such claims. Accordingly, an equitable redistribution of voting power between all member nations is essential. This would ensure that emerging countries possess a fair and rightful say regarding the terms and stipulations in which they pursue modernization, thereby providing the potential for a sustainable form of global development.

Similarly, the U.S. foreign policies and covert military operations that are implemented within Latin America must be severely restricted. These highly questionable and morally dubious U.S. interventions, to which history can attest, are tantamount to third world union busting by federal forces at the disposal of U.S. private interest. As previously discussed, such measures ultimately act to preserve a state of neocolonial rule, a necessity for corporate production within the area. Further, such actions demonstrate a highly inappropriate degree of intermingling between government and corporate entities, thereby, making a mockery of our political process and the supposed values, to which as a nation, we claim adherence.

Section II

While it is easy to suggest radical changes to both the national and international government institutions that facilitate these relationships of unequal power, one is forced to recognize that such transformation is reliant on a far greater degree of social governance over these agencies than is presently exercised. Thus, in a globalizing world, such a change demands a socio-cultural reorientation toward the interconnected reality of social systems and the ecological environments in which they exist. Therefore, the initial first steps in achieving a sustainable form of global development seem to largely begin at the individual level. That is, they begin with the consumer’s ability to understand the real cost demanded by our treadmill of production and consumption. This stance leads one back to the two paramount events that followed the rise of capitalist culture: the creation of the consumer and the relegation of the state as a tool of corporate production. Regarding the former however, neoliberal economic logic holds that the consumer enters the market as an autonomous force, “.that wants are not contrived, [but] are deeply organic in the human situation.” and that the aggregation of these wants, drive production (Galbraith 1971: 177). In this way, the consumer is made a scapegoat of corporate production and the global inequalities that result thereof. Therefore, any collective social action that would challenge the corporate treadmill is greatly inhibited, for the consumer envisions such a challenge to be detrimental to his/her own wellbeing.

However, through examination of corporate investments in advertising and its social roll, one is forced to question this notion of consumer sovereignty. As posited by Schnaiberg, the key function of advertising is the creation of unfulfilled fictional desires and to provide an avenue to satisfaction and contentment through product purchase; in this way, advertising alters consumer self-perception and behavior alike (1980). It should be underscored that the U.S. constitutes 120 billion of the 250 billion spent annually on global advertising; further, that U.S. corporate expenditures on advertising is nearly 60 percent of that which the state spends on education (Robbins 1999). Consequently, it would appear that corporate entities exert considerable energy in creating the ideal consumer population. That is, our desires and needs are largely contrived and placed in alignment with the economically efficient and mass-producing treadmill. Put another way, production leads consumption and therefore also leads the socio-environmental inequalities that result from current consumer behaviors.

It follows that a social and cultural reorientation is contingent on the ability to withdraw from a numbing state of corporate libertarianism and its dictates of social dependency. In accordance with Schnaiberg, if this deviation from the current system is to be recognized it will likely be reliant on a growing awareness of the socio-economic and environmental distresses inherently produced by corporate-led globalism, the most overt manifestation of the capitalist system. However, this awareness alone does not ensure that a legitimate challenge to the treadmill would be instigated, for capitalist culture construes such discomforts as self-induced by way of consumption. Through this propagation of consumer guilt, a foundation is provided from which corporate interests could point to the great consumer sacrifices demanded by structural change. In this way, mounting social anxieties would be easily pacified by the corporate self-imposed enactment of superficial alterations to the production system. Under capitalist culture, this supposition is made all the more probable when considering the degree of integration that has come to exist between the state and economic system. This is an association that has arguably come to constitute a circumstance of codependency, in which, each entity is virtually synonymous with the other. Therefore, in the interest of self-preservation it behooves the state not to interject when corporate entities propose false modes of systems rectification to the public. For as history can attest, social backlash to an economic system often corresponds with instances of political upheaval (Dandaneau 1998). This notion of collaboration between government and economic forces in the attempt to preserve and reproduce the current socio-economic and political order has many far reaching implications. Thus, in any discussion regarding collective opposition to the current system, this dynamic necessitates further examination.

According to Jurgen Habermas, and in agreement with Marxist theory, the economic system of capitalism is laden with a host of internal contradictions that consistently produce economic crises; however, as opposed to the capitalism of Marx’s day, Habermas holds that we have entered a new phase of “advanced capitalism” in which the state is closely associated with the economic system (in this paper, a theme thus far emerging under capitalist culture). This is done in the attempt to both manage these crises and maintain the socio-cultural conditions conducive to the system’s continuation (Dandaneau 1998). To this argument, the processes of corporate transnationalism afford an excellent case in point.

Naturally, with corporate investment in foreign industries comes a decline in investment in national industries, as a result unemployment rises as U.S. corporate jobs are shipped overseas. With increasing unemployment in the United States comes an increase in social problems such as crime, poverty, inadequate health care, etc. It follows that the state is called on to alleviate these issues through an increase in social services such as, welfare, unemployment benefits, jails, etc. However in the final analysis, these services can only be augmented by way of increased taxation, thus, exacerbating the pre-existing set of social ailments. In this way, the economic problems resulting from corporate multinationalism are transformed and brought to the political arena where they are perceived by the public as social problems resulting from failures within the structure of government itself, not the economic system (Dandaneau 1998). Thus, America’s period of deindustrialization, a product of corporate globalization, beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present has had profound economic effects on the populace. For example, “between 1967 and 2001, the income of the middle 20% of the population dropped from 17.3% to 14.6% of the total . . . [Further,] between 1981 and 1999, there was a 340% increase in middle class bankruptcies. And, in 2001 [alone,] 1.4 million Americans lost their health insurance.. .” (Allan 2011: 446). However, due to the current structure of the system (close association between state and economy), government is largely unable to either challenge or adequately rectify the negative effects of corporate investment abroad.

Due to this reality, one is able to discern that any domestic resistance to the current global economic order is most likely to manifest itself as opposition to the state. According to Habermas, when an economic crisis of sufficient magnitude occurs and its effects are “displaced” into the political sphere (through mechanisms previously discussed), the result will be a “crises of legitimation” for the state rather than the economic system (Allan 2011: 373). In other words, through the habitual failures of the state to resolve the social embodiment of economic disaster, the public becomes disillusioned and indifferent to government, thereby “withdrawing its loyalty” from the political process, hence “legitimation crisis” (Dandaneau 1998: 169). Consequentially, with increasing public opinion of the state as an illegitimate institution comes a similar withdrawal of motivation from societal involvement, “.especially the motivation toward achievement and participation in the occupational system[,]” referred to by Habermas as “motivation crises” (Dandaneau 1998: 169). Obviously, this lack of participation in both the political and occupational arenas would pose a serious threat to the current system. For just as the government and economic order exist in a state of codependency, their survival is likewise dependent on the degree of validity and thus involvement the public contributes to these institutions. In light of this position, one is left to consider the prospective strategies utilized by state and corporate entities in the attempt to maintain and reproduce the ideal con-sumer-citizen population.

In accordance with symbolic interactionism, abstract social objects such as political/economic institutions, norms, values and beliefs are maintained through the use of language, which is the medium upon which all social interaction depends (Hewitt and Shulman 2011). Although these abstract objects exist in a state of flux, constantly being negotiated through communicative interaction and/or collective consensus building, they largely depend on a pre-established and implicit set of cultural understandings in order to be reproduced (Dandaneau 1998). This process and its end result comprise the social order in which we live and thus largely come to dictate our social roles, perspectives and day-to-day interactions. Likewise, Habermas refers to this process as the “sociocultural system” or “lifeworld” by which we experience and maneuver through everyday life (Allan 2011: 370). In this way, one is forced to recognize that the crises of legitimation and motivation discussed earlier are both derived from and contingent upon a pre-existing socio-cultural system that is “.filled with historically and socially specific meaning... ” and thus represent a lifeworld that is no longer in alignment with the current economic and political order. It is important to underscore that Habermas views said socio-cultural system to be guided by “value rationality,” the values or moral convictions that drive both individual and collective behavior (Allan 2011: 377). It follows that if this problematic lifeworld is primarily achieved through social interactions and consensus building, the medium of which is communication, it behooves state and corporate forces to influence or alter this medium in the interest of selfcontinuation. Or perhaps better stated, it serves these forces to alter the socio-cultural foundation—traditionally held values, norms and beliefs—upon which this dialectic process is based. In turn, one is left to consider the avenues through which state and corporate entities might pursue this end.

As previously addressed, language is the medium of all social interaction and consensus formation, thus, it serves to undergird an evolving social order and the cultural patterns (norms, values and beliefs) unique to it. However, “different social institutions [such as the state and economy] use different [forms of] media” to communicate and, as opposed to the lifeworld, are guided by instrumental rationality—“.means-and-ends calculation.”—which drives their day-to-day operations (Allan 2011: 374, 377). Accordingly, the state uses power and the corporation uses money as a media for communication both within their own structures and between individual institutions (Allan 2011). It follows that with a crisis of legitimation and motivation, characterized by a withdrawal of loyalty and participation from the present system, government and corporate forces would seek to impose their own forms of media and rationality onto the external social order upon which their existence is dependent. In this way, the language that sustains our socio-cultural system based in traditional values, norms and beliefs is manipulated and altered by the language of money and power, therefore, bringing a once dissatisfied and morally disillusioned lifeworld back into alignment within the instrumental rationality and operations of a corrupt and exploitative system. This attempt on behalf of state and corporate institutions to “stabilize and reproduce” a culture of capitalism is referred to by Habermas as “colonization of the lifeworld,” which he posits cannot be achieved without severe social-psychological consequences (Habermas 1987: 267).

In other words, through the interjection of money and power into the social sphere of mutual understanding and consensus building—a process that both depends on standardized cultural patterns, while simultaneously reproducing them—the dialectic process that yields an ethically sound and truly democratic social order is fundamentally altered. For as previously stated, abstract social objects are in a constant state of flux, perpetually being renegotiated through interaction with new social players socialized to observe modified or highly divergent norms, values and beliefs. In this way, the media (money and power) used by the economic and political order penetrates the lifeworld, which comes to incorporate these instruments of exchange within its own structure, thereby, replacing the original mechanisms of social interaction and consensus building. As stated by Habermas, money and power come to “.steer a social intercourse that has been largely disconnected from norms and values...” (Habermas 1987: 154). Consequentially, the sociocultural system is, in effect, held hostage by government and economic forces, hence, greatly restricting the ability, or perhaps more to the point, the capacity to perceive a need for collective social opposition to the current system. As a result, the populace becomes complacent to its intellectual and ethical democratic obligations, therefore, forsaking its responsibility to move as an active agent in the pursuit of universal human equality and justice. In light of the complexities seemingly inherent to any struggle toward a socio-cultural reorientation, one is forced to ponder the degree to which a colonization process has occurred: Can specific incidences or institutional practices of the state and corporation be identified as such?

The most blatant mode of introducing state and corporate language into the social dialectic is advertising. As previously discussed, U.S. corporate expenditures on advertising constitute 48 percent of the total spent globally each year. Also addressed was that this level of investment ultimately serves to remove any relevant degree of autonomy the consumer once possessed, thereby creating the ideal consumer population whose desires and needs are largely dictated by the global treadmill. However, advertising does more than simply persuade consumer disposition, it is the conduit through which money and power are interjected into the social sphere, thus, triggering a chain reaction of new anomalies within the social matrix. As posited by Schnaiberg, advertising constructs “... a broader consumer culture and a consumer social structure. Here private consumption forms a key part of social stratification and social relationships, from family to community” (1980: 177). In other words, advertising comes to hold a paramount position within the socialization and acculturation process. And, due to its ubiquitous use of institutional language as a mode of exchange, the lifeworld comes to adopt these instruments of communication as its own. Put another way, “the media is the message” and the public, ever attentive, is taken in by a new set of norms, values and beliefs upon which social interaction and discourse is to be based. In this way, traditional cultural patterns are displaced by money and power, which become the socially sanctioned means for achieving a successful and fulfilling life: “Money is used to purchase commodities that in turn are used to construct identities and impress other people,” in doing so, one gains power through an elevation in social status (Allan 2011: 377). It follows that value-rationality (the would-be basis of collective moral objection to the treadmill’s many global abuses) hemorrhages from a society increasingly sustained on the detached, profit driven ideology inherent to the institution. In this way, public castigation of the corporate-led global system is greatly assuaged, if not mollified in its entirety. Thus is identified one primary means of colonization, which to the benefit of state and corporate operations, ultimately serves to reconstruct the fundamental cultural patterns and dialectic processes on which traditional democratic society is based. However, colonization of the lifeworld is defined as a collaborative attempt on behalf of corporate and government entities to “stabilize and reproduce [a culture of] capitalism” (Dandaneau 1998: 168). Therefore, what roll or instance of cooperation in these efforts can be attributed to the state?

To this regard, the administration of President Ronald Reagan arguably provides an excellent case in point. Beyond enormous advancements in the neo-liberal economic agenda witnessed under this presidency, the driving force of corporate multinationalism, there stands a particular political maneuver pertinent to the subject of colonization: the dissolution of the “Fairness Doctrine.” This doctrine was a:

.two-part requirement imposed by the federal government on radio and television licensees throughout the United States. Under the first part, each broadcast licensee must devote a reasonable percentage of its programming to the coverage of controversial issues of public importance. The second part require[d] that this coverage be fair in the sense that it provides an opportunity for the presentation of contrasting points of view (Simmons 1977: 546-547).

However, in the early 1980s the Reagan administration began phasing out this regulation, a process that culminated in its termination by presidential veto in 1987 (Dunklee 1989).

Important is the fact that a healthy democratic society depends on access to and participation in the public sphere, a place of civic debate and consensus building regarding both national and international political policy formation (Allan 2011). Thus this sphere also provides a free flow of information and ideas concerning such matters. It followed that with the rise of mass media outlets this arena for civic discourse was largely relocated to the radio and television programing of broadcasters. Naturally, with free government licensing of publicly owned airwaves, these broadcasters were required to maintain adherence to the Fairness Doctrine’s rule of law (Dunklee 1989). Yet, the Reagan administration argued that the increasing number of station and network broadcasts ultimately provided sufficient diversity of information and presentation to negate the doctrine’s civic function (Dunklee 1989). It should be noted however, that between 1979 and 1988—the period of phasing out and eventual termination—“public affairs broadcasting” dropped by “51 percent” (Dunklee 1989: 14). Also relevant, is that this doctrine did not exclude advertisements, which if found to compromise the public’s wellbeing were forced, likewise, to find balance in both information and presentation (Ellman 1972). In this way, the demise of the Fairness Doctrine facilitated a transition to the news and mass media sources of today, which are built around profit margins and afforded the luxury of indifference to a well-informed public. Consequentially, the Democratic citizen, once protected by the right to obtain accurate and balanced information regarding matters of socio-political importance, has largely gone extinct, replaced by a population of “citizen machines”¹⁴ governed by the force of ideological homogenization born of mass media. Hence, efforts on behalf of both state and corporate entities in colonizing the socio-cultural system are made discernible. Subsequently, these efforts appear to underwrite an overall degradation to the democratic values which, as a nation, we are charged to uphold and whose decline ultimately serves to alleviate the corporate-led global system of any relevant domestic threat.

In closing, this paper has attempted to show a few of the many complex challenges facing any collective opposition to the current economic and political order. More significantly however, it has sought to reveal and stress the overarching ethical, social and environmental importance of achieving such a struggle. Failure in this task equates to the perpetuation of a government that has been co-opted by monopoly capital—a charlatan state which maneuvers as a high-class muscle man to corporate production abroad—and to a nation whose standard of living is enjoyed at the expense of those from whom it was stolen. However, the continuance of an unchallenged system exacts yet another atrocity on the social sph ere: colonization of our communities and interpersonal relationships, which stand as a last frontier on the precipice of full acquisition. If successful, this conquest will relinquish the last degree of meaningful social interaction and discourse to the enthronement of a synthetic culture born of hedonistic consumption. What forms of recourse then might be perused in the hopes of altering the global treadmill and its many exploitations?

Toward this goal, it would seem essential that an elevation in public consciousness regarding the aggressive corporate shaping of consumer culture not only be recognized, but met with hostility. Further, deviation from the treadmill will demand a reemergence of the state, advocated by the populace, as an institution directly responsible for the provision of social welfare, not as a subordinate to corporate production in achieving this end. This implies the stripping of corporate finances from the political process in its entirety and the pursuit of state-sponsored production that is alternative to the current trend of corporate expansion into LDCs. In part, such measures could be achieved through a reversal of the 1886 Supreme Court ruling, with its latest reaffirmation of corporate personhood occurring in 2009. Also beneficial would be the reestablished use of traditional corporate charters, which would thereby allow the government to dissolve corporate entities if found to be an inadequate contributor to the population’s overall economic wellbeing.

These suggestions, however, are not at the heart’s interest of this paper, for the intricacies of a socio-economic and political restructuring are vast. Beyond this point, these or any other steps toward achieving social transformation would seem reliant on an instance of initiation, a pivotal moment in which society at large is jolted into action. That is, even Habermas’s hopes for a societal reorientation based in “ideal speech communities” and “civil society” formation are largely dependent on “the creation of ideal speech situations.. .[by] the democratic citizen[,].the state’s limited power[,].[and a].. .liberal political culture.. .that emphasizes equality for all” (Allan 2011: 380-381). Consequentially, this forces one to consider how these prerequisite conditions to change, among many others addressed by Habermas, might be brought to fruition.

Respectfully, one might consider the position of increasing importance the academy holds in this regard. That is, do the dire socio-economic, environmental and political conditions produced by the global system demand a new era of engagement between the academic community and mainstream society? C. Wright Mills eloquently states:

The epoch in which we stand is pivotal; the tradition of classic social analysis is clear. We must respond to events; we must define orienting policies. Should we fail to do so we stand in default of our intellectual and of our public duties; we abdicate such role as reason may have in human affairs. And this we should be unwilling to do (1958: 15).

Through this intensification of academic commitment to engage the public, a wealth of new information, ideas, and thus social possibilities would surge from the walls of academia, in which they are too often confined for life. In this way, the initial first steps in bridging the gap between academic social theory and concrete social action could be achieved. With such events, one may hope to witness the emergence of an authentic democratic citizenry, aware of the true human and ecological costs externalized by a global system of which we are uniquely a part and whose many abuses history will not forget.

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Appendix B Demographic Form

Effects of Locus of Control and

¹

   Edward S. Herman defines “globalization” as “both an active process of corporate expansion across borders and a structure of cross-border facilities and economic linkages that has been steadily growing and changing as the process gathers steam. Like its conceptual partner, ‘free trade,’ globalization is also an ideology, whose function is to reduce any resistance to the process by making it seem both highly beneficent and unstoppable” (1999).

²

   Throughout this paper I do not use the term “global South” to demarcate the global equatorial divide, but to differentiate underdeveloped nations from those that enjoy higher levels of social and economic modernization. Both in this sense and statistically, nations comprising the global South are disproportionally under or just above the hemispheric divide and can be understood as those countries with a history of colonial rule, imperialist domination, and socio-economic underdevelopment.

³

   In this paper the term “global North” is meant to designate those countries that are fully industrialized and that have achieved the highest degrees of socio-economic modernization. Specifically, the “global North” can be understood as containing the world’s eight most powerful nations, the G8, which all exist above the hemispheric divide and have historically dominated colonial and imperialist actions across the globe. Given the primary focus of this paper, it should be underscored that the U.S. stands as both the economic and military power house within the global North.

⁴

   The word “consumerism” is “.. .used to describe the complex position that objects have in society, particularly, although not exclusively, describing modern or industrial society. Consumerism is the cultural relationship between humans and consumer goods and services, including behaviors, institutions and ideas” (Martin 1993: 144).

⁵

Throughout this paper the words “state” and “government” are used interchangeably.

⁶

The G8 consists of the world’s eight wealthiest nations the U.S., Russia, France, West Germany, the U.K. Italy, Japan and Canada.

⁷

It should be noted that the U.S. dominates both the World Bank and IMF in total voting power holding approximately 25% of total voting power in the World Bank and approximately 17% in the IMF. On this subject Galeano states: “Born in the United States, headquartered in the United States, and at the service of the United States, the Fund effectively operates as an international inspector without whose approval U.S. banks will not loosen their purse strings. The World Bank, the Agency for international development, and other philanthropic organizations of global scope likewise make their credits conditional on the signature and implementation of the receiving governments’ ‘letters of intention’ to the allpowerful Fund. All the Latin American nations put together do not have half as many votes as the Unites States in the direction of the policy of this supreme genie of world monetary equilibrium” (1997: 221).

⁸

Richard Robbins defines “corporate libertarianism” as an ideology “placing the rights and freedoms of corporations above the rights and freedoms of individuals the corporation comes to exist as a separate entity with its own internal logic and rules” (1999: 100). Found central to this ideology are the principles intrinsic to neoliberal economic logic.

⁹

Other examples of direct U. S. intervention and support for violent military dictatorships include: Chile, 1973; Panama, 1989; Grenada, 1983; Nicaragua, 1984; as well as El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina throughout the1980s (Zinn 2003; Dillon 2009).

¹⁰

   On this subject Noam Chomsky states: “.the appeal to security was largely fraudulent, the Cold War framework having been employed as a device to justify the suppression of independent nationalism whether in Europe, Japan, or the Third World” (1994). For further detail see Howard Zinn’s comments (593).

¹¹

   For example, the French revolution of 1848, largely based on workers’ rights and universal suffrage, quickly spread throughout the region; within two months of this French movement the majority of governments within continental Europe had been overthrown (Robbins 1999).

¹²

   The three major U.S. based corporate interests that were threatened by Guatemala’s 1954 government included United Fruit Company, Anaconda Copper, International Telephone and Telegraph (Zinn 2003).

¹³

The term “treadmill of production” was coined by Allan Schnaiberg and in its most simple form represents the interplay between labor, monopoly capital (corporations), and government in the perpetual transnational expansion of capitalist ideology and its mechanisms of production and consumption (Schnaiberg 1980). This concept “.emphasizes that we are all part of a system that must continue to grow to continually produce more and create consumers to consume that which is produced. This process requires ever more energy and resources and causes industrial and consumer wastes to be constantly generated” (Schnaiberg and Gould 1994: 69). It should be noted that Schnaiberg’s most rigorous application of this theoretical framework occurred within the context of the United States and its global affairs,

¹⁴

This concept came from the title of Anna McCarthy’s book The Citizen Machine: Governing By Television in 1950’s America (2010).

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44

Focalization and Proletarian Gender Dynamics in Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums”

by Meagan Ellis

When Merle Danford, a master’s student at Ohio University, asked during a 1939 interview what philosophy he employed when writing, John Steinbeck replied: “I haven’t the least idea. And if I told you one, it wouldn’t be true. I don’t like people to be hurt or hungry or unnecessarily sad. It’s just as simple as that” (qtd. in Timmerman viii). It is this disdain for unnecessary suffering that has become a defining characteristic of his literary works. Working summers at Spreckels Ranch between dropping in and out of studies at Stanford University between 1919 and 1925 introduced Steinbeck to the hardships faced by local migrant workers and the ideology presented by the Communist party organizers who rallied to them (Timmerman x). Peter Lisca notes that these early experiences are heavily reflected in his later works—such as In Dubious Battle and Tortilla Flat—in which Steinbeck specifically mimicked the unique speech patterns he heard from party organizers to give authenticity to his work (64). While Steinbeck never took part in any Communist activities or committed himself to the Communist philosophy, his novels—particularly The Grapes of Wrath—were “debated in public forums, banned, burned, denounced from pulpits, attacked in pamphlets, and even debated on the floor of Congress” for their obvious Marxist leanings (88).

Although several of Steinbeck’s works deal explicitly with Marxist scenarios, such as In Dubious Battle or Tortilla Flat, many more of his works do not meet the specific criterion of the proletarian novel as defined by Calvin E. Harris’s work, Twentieth Century American Political Fiction: an Analysis of Proletarian Fiction—i.e. “Marxist oriented and reflecting] the commitment of a movement dedicated to changing our society in a fundamental sense”—yet still reflect the core principles of Marxist ideology (2). In his work, “Proletarian Writing and John Steinbeck,” Claude E. Jones discusses how, unlike Harris’s definition, proletarian fiction can be defined by its creation of a Marxist economy in which one party holds considerable influence over the other (446)—a term more widely known as “hegemony” to modern Marxist critics (Dobie 99). Jones also specifies that proletarian works are defined by a need to “overthrow” the existing hierarchy with revolution (446). Finally, he contends that to act as a proletarian piece, a work must exhibit “international implications,” or suggest themes that pertain to the everyman (446).

Steinbeck’s work, “The Chrysanthemums,” has received much critical attention for its showcase of male and female power struggles, but it has been analyzed almost exclusively through a feminist lens. For example, William V. Miller, author of “Sexual and Spiritual Ambiguity in ‘The Chrysanthemums,’” focuses his argument on how Elisa Allen and the other women of The Long Valley are “childless, frustrated, compulsive housekeepers and gardeners who share an animus against the male world” (68). Focusing on Elisa, he argues that her emotional anguish stems from “a measure of frustrated sexual desire in her personality” which is left unfulfilled through the course of the work. Deviating somewhat from feminist criticism, C. Kenneth Pellow focuses on the pattern of animal imagery connecting Elisa with the tinker’s “mongrel dog” (11). In his article, “‘The Chrysanthemums’: Revisited,” he argues, “All of the animals in it are oppressed, trapped, neglected or overwhelmed by the mechanical and mechanistic world, much as is Elisa” (11). By contrast, he connects the men in the story to the mechanical world: consumers who abuse the natural beings of the farm to achieve their own ends. Thus, unlike most readings, Pellow does not contain his argument within the typical interpretation of the battle of the sexes, but rather extends it towards the battle between the natural world and the industrial world.

As Miller, Pellow, and other previous critics have shown, the feminist implications of the “The Chrysanthemums” are inescapable. However,

Steinbeck’s personal history with Marxism and use of explicit proletarian themes in other works suggest that his seemingly non-political works have underlying political implications. Steinbeck’s gender conflict in “The Chrysanthemums” can be used to illustrate how proletarian conflicts can occur outside the sphere of economics and how oppression—be it through socioeconomic status, race, gender, etc.—can negatively affect all members of society. With his unique use of focalization, Steinbeck creates a character who is not only the victim of patriarchal oppression, but is also representative of humanity’s ability to suppress and overpower one another in all aspects of life.

From the first paragraph of “The Chrysanthemums,” the reader gains a sense of enclosure and constriction from the description of the Salinas landscape: “The high grey-flannel fog of winter closed off the Salinas Valley from the sky and the rest of the world. On every side it sat like a lid on the mountains and made of the great valley a closed pot” (1). The narrator goes on to describe how the farmers working the land hope for a “good rain,” but quickly negates this hope with the statement: “but fog and rain don’t go together” (1). This statement hints at the idea that something beneficial is being blockaded by another seemingly negative force. After this description of the scene, the reader is introduced to Elisa Allen as she works in her flower bed separated from the business deal her husband is conducting in the background (1). Although she is engaged in the least amount of activity, she is the greatest point of interest in the scene as the narrator describes her “costume” in great detail: “Her figure looked blocked and heavy in her gardening costume, a man’s black hat pulled low down over her eyes, clodhopper shoes, a figured print dress almost completely covered by a big corduroy apron with four big pockets... She wore heavy gloves to protect her hands while she worked” (12). The three men are merely a blur in the reader’s peripheral vision—only slightly more distinct than the cows they are discussing. H. Porter Abbott describes this kind of strategic detailing as focalization: “the lens through which we see characters and events through the narrative” (73). Like special lighting on a theatrical stage, focalization is meant to draw one’s attention to the character moving the action of the story forward and give insight to their inner thoughts and emotions. Interestingly enough, Elisa’s physical characteristics are described minimally, giving the reader only a vague insight to her distinct attributes. At most, Elisa is described with the adjectives “pretty” and “handsome”. Other physical descriptions, such as the initial description of her drab gardening attire, are made in connection with exterior attributes and do not specifically describe her facial or bodily characteristics. By not giving an overly detailed description of his protagonist, Steinbeck has created an everywoman character that each member of the audience can shape in his or her own image in his or her imagination. In this way, Steinbeck is able to create the “international implication” that Jones names as an important aspect of proletarian fiction. Because she is relatable to every woman, her plight thus becomes the plight of seemingly all women.

What Elisa lacks in physical description, Steinbeck makes up for in description of her actions in minute detail. The narrator first describes Elisa’s gardening: “Even her work with the scissors was over-eager, overpowerful. The chrysanthemum stems seemed too small and easy for her energy” (2). As the story progresses, her actions become the reader’s sole insight into her emotions as she interacts with her male antagonists. First, Henry and Elisa discuss her considerable gardening ability:

“You’ve got a gift with things,” Henry observed. “Some of those yellow chrysanthemums you had this year were ten inches across. I wish you’d work out in the orchard and raise some apples that big.” Her eyes sharpened. “Maybe I could do it, too. I’ve got a gift with things, all right. My mother had it. She could stick anything in the ground and make it grow.

She said it was having planters’ hands that knew how to do

it.” (2-3)

Despite her established ability, Henry quickly relegates Elisa back to femininely appropriate gardening after considering her as an active participant on the farm: “‘Well, it sure works with flowers,’ he said” (3). By dismissing her play for a more active role on the farm, Henry is separating Elisa from her potential agency, defending the patriarchal system that maintains that separation and creating the work’s definitive hegemony.

While the narrator does not explicitly state Elisa’s thoughts during the conversation, the reader can conjecture her latent resentment based on the “sharpening]” of her eyes (2). Without her emotional state being simply handed to the reader via the narrator, the reader is thus able to translate their potential emotions through Elisa’s physical reaction. Elisa does not push the issue of more active work, but rather shuts down emotionally. Her responses to Henry’s offer of a night out on the town are bland and without enthusiasm: Henry says “‘I thought how it’s Saturday afternoon, and we might go into Salinas for dinner at a restaurant, and then to a picture show—to celebrate, you see.’ ‘Good,’ she repeated. ‘Oh, yes. That will be good’” (3). Her attire, depicted as a “costume” with “clodhopper shoes” and absent of any sexuality, becomes a clownish imitation of the active lifestyle she craves and thus symbolic of her passive resignation to accept unsubstantial substitutes for her desires. Steinbeck’s combination of emotional and visual focalization here allows the reader to feel the same anger and resignation that Elisa feels—creating a sense of camaraderie between the audience and protagonist and solidifying the work’s international implications.

Elisa’s behavior radically changes when she interacts with the story’s primary antagonist, the tinker. From the beginning of their conversation, it is evident that Elisa is more at ease with this wild-looking stranger than with her own husband. She is loose enough to share a joke with the tinker in contrast to her stiff, guarded behavior while discussing going to dinner with Henry: “The man caught up her laughter and echoed it heartily” (4). Elisa is also comfortable enough to literally and metaphorically undress herself in front the tinker; she takes off her gloves during this conversation (5) as opposed to pulling them back on while with her husband (2). This seemingly insignificant action hints at the sexual energy pervading their interactions. However, the sexual tension building between them is not indicative of the tinker’s physical attractiveness. On the con-them is not indicative of the tinker’s physical attractiveness. On the contrary, he is described as large and besmirched with grease. References to his size and his repeated connection to the color black create an atmosphere of intimidation. For example, “his worn black suit” (4), “his eyes were dark” (5), “The calloused hands he rested on the wire fence were cracked, and every crack was a black line” (5) add to the dark imagery that surrounds him. If anything, she should be repulsed by him. Instead, she soaks in every detail of him and romanticizes what should repel her: “Elisa saw that he was a very big man. His eyes were dark, and they were full of the brooding that gets in the eyes of teamsters and of sailors” (5). One should keep in mind that Elisa’s husband is not described with any specific detail at any point in the story, but Steinbeck depicts Elisa as running her eyes over the tinker as if with a fine-toothed comb. Abbott describes a similar scenario and suggests how someone describes another in such intimate detail can say more about the observer themselves: “. focalizing can contribute richly to how we think and feel as we read. Just as we pick up various intensities of thought and feeling from the voice that we hear, so also do we pick up thought and feeling from the eyes that we see through” (Abbott 74). The tinker and his nomadic lifestyle are dangerously captivating to Elisa as we can plainly see through her intense gaze.

Their exchange on the proper maintenance of scissors takes on a phallic tone as Elisa defends her agency: “‘Scissors is the worst thing,’ he explained. ‘Most people just ruin scissors trying to sharpen’ em, but I know how. I got a special tool. It’s a little bobbit kind of thing, and patented. But it sure does the trick.’ [Elisa said,] ‘No. My scissors are all sharp’” (5). Elisa’s irritation at having her agency doubted is also evident through her facial expressions which render explicit description of her thoughts unnecessary: “Her eyes hardened with resistance” (5). Realizing that he is quickly losing an opportunity to make money, he makes notice of and compliments her chrysanthemums, her one source of agency, which immediately elicits the desired effect: “The irritation and resistance melted from Elisa’s face” (6). Noting this reaction, the tinker realizes that the best way to obtain her money is to tap into her need to express her agency, making the tinker the perfect model of a heartless capitalist. The tinker, after stroking her ego, offers to take a few of the flowers and share them with a fictitious woman living in another area. Elisa’s excitement is palpable as she believes that the tinker is truly interested in her chrysanthemums and thus psychically disrobes herself: “Her eyes shone. She tore off the battered hat and shook out her dark pretty hair” (7). As she expresses her potential for agency, barely masked by her description of “planting hands,” her speech becomes increasingly sexual as she becomes more empowered by her own capabilities: “‘When the night is dark—why the stars are sharp-pointed, and there’s quiet. Why, you rise up and up! Every pointed star gets driven into your body. It’s like that. Hot and sharp and—lovely’” (8). This burst of emotional energy from breaking from her state of gendered repression releases her pent-up frustration. Steinbeck’s focalization on her heavy breathing and blatantly sexual behavior acts like a conduit transferring all of Elisa’s psychic energy to the reader. The reader becomes emotionally involved in this rapturous moment in which Elisa realizes that she is capable of a free and active life. The seeds for her personal revolution are planted and she and the reader emerge with renewed self-confidence.

In naive gratitude for what she has interpreted as validation of her agency, she fetches him two pots to repair. The episode has increased her self-confidence to the point that she is able to argue for her own potential: “You might be surprised to have a rival sometime. I can sharpen scissors, too. And I can beat the dents out of little pots. I could show you what a woman might do” (9). The tinker, having successfully carried out his deception, ceases in stroking her ego: “It would be a lonely life for a woman, ma’am, and a scary life, too, with animals creeping under the wagon all night” (9). Despite his dismissal of her agency as a woman, Elisa is still drunk on her new confidence in her ability to participate in life. Running into the house, Elisa explores this new sense of power through sexualizing her once “blocked and heavy” (1) body: “She put on her newest underclothing and her nicest stockings and the dress which was the symbol of her prettiness. She worked carefully on her hair, penciled her eyebrows and rouged her lips” (10). The acceptance of unful-filling substitutes will no longer suffice for her as she symbolically strips off the old costume for more potent, sexually vibrant attire. Henry is shocked by the sudden change of confidence in his wife: “I mean you look different, strong and happy. You look strong enough to break a calf over your knee, happy enough to eat it like a watermelon” (11). Coming into her own, she agrees: “‘I’m strong,’ she boasted. ‘I never knew before how strong’” (11). At this moment of personal revolution, she is empowered by her ability to commandeer her own body and shows promise of taking hold of her agency as well.

Elisa’s surge of confidence comes to a screeching halt when she sees the abandoned chrysanthemums on the side of the road and realizes the tinker’s deception: “Far ahead on the road Elisa saw a dark speck. She knew” (12). This pivotal moment is the only instance in which Steinbeck gives the reader an explicit description of Elisa’s mental state. With only two words, the reader feels the weight of Elisa’s crushing realization: the tinker has used her desire for agency to meet his own desire for monetary gain, displaying the picture of Capitalism. She realizes the futility of her attempt to fulfill her desire in a world banning women from obtaining their means of production which is their full potential for agency: “In a moment it was over. The thing was done. She did not look back” (12). Elisa’s change in attitude is noticeable even by Harry, ignorant of the day’s events or of his wife’s frustration: “Now you’ve changed again. I ought to take you in to dinner oftener. It would be good for both of us. We get so heavy out on the ranch” (12). Desperate for a modicum of the power she has lost, she meekly requests wine with dinner—a tame imitation of the romantic freedom she craves. With Henry’s approval, she becomes bolder: “‘Henry, at those prize fights, do the men hurt each other very much? .I’ve read how they break noses, and blood runs down their chests. I’ve read how the fighting gloves get heavy and soggy with blood’” (12). The fury she feels in being manipulated by the tinker manifests itself in her brief desire to see the prize fights, hoping for catharsis through vicarious bloodshed. However, shamed by allowing herself to be deceived by the tinker, she resigns herself to her former passive role and unsubstantial substitutes: “Oh, no. No. I don’t want to go. I’m sure I don’t. It will be enough if we can have wine. It will be plenty” (13). At the end of the story, Elisa is left bereft of the agency she had briefly obtained and is left “crying weakly—like an old woman” (13). Her personal revolution has failed. Steinbeck’s image of a shriveled old woman is the last impression cast into the reader’s mind and it leaves him or her empty.

“The Chrysanthemums” is left without a definitive solution, a common trope of proletarian fiction (Jones 449). What remains is Elisa left completely stripped of her potency and sexual power and the reader being filled with sympathy for Elisa’s having been manipulated by the tinker. With Steinbeck’s use of focalization, the reader is able to easily project themselves into Elisa’s place and acutely experience her emotions through her transparent physical reactions. “The Chrysanthemums” thus becomes a story about the international implications of oppression and the emotional dangers of resigning one’s self to accepted cultural dogma. While it does not explicitly portray a working class battling for political power against a wealthy bourgeoisie, it depicts an equally proletarian struggle of a woman struggling—if only in vain—for ownership of her agency against the larger patriarchal society holding hegemony over her and how we, as the audience, can easily find ourselves in her place.

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Steinbeck Quarterly 22.01-02 (1989). 8-16. Ball State University Digital Media Repository. Web. 14 Apr 2012. Steinbeck, John. “The Chrysanthemums.” The Long Valley. Ed. John H.

Timmerman. New York:    Penguin, 1938.    1-13. Print.

Timmerman, John H. Introduction. The Long Valley. By John Steinbeck. 1938. New York: Penguin, 1995. vii-xxvii. Print.

55

American Pop Culture and the Formation of Identity in Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album

by Laura N. Hanna

Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album is an ideal novel through which to study the difficulties of finding one’s place in postcolonial Britain. This struggle to locate the central focus of identity is especially difficult for the novel’s main character, Shahid, who tries to mold his identity while living in a culturally diverse England. Other characters in Kureishi’s novel such as Chili (Shahid’s brother) and Deedee (Shahid’s teacher and lover) also struggle to define themselves in postcolonial Britain, but they ironically find the identity they are searching for not in the English culture they are surrounded by, but in American pop culture. Directly related to America’s significance in the novel is the fact that it is set in 1989—a key year in America’s presumed triumph as the world’s most powerful capitalist nation. This paper examines the key reasons for America’s position, while also illustrating how and why Chili, Shahid, and Deedee have chosen to esteem American icons and pop culture instead of looking within the space of their own socially circumscribed Asian and English cultures to help mediate their realities.

Identity is a key factor and complication for each of the characters in Kureishi’s The Black Album. Indeed, the parameters of a term like “identity” must here be defined in the postcolonial sense:

Identity is not as transparent or unproblematic as we think. Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished historical fact, which the new cinematic discourses-then represent, we should think, instead, of identity as a 'production',which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation. But this view problematises the very authority and authenticity to which the term, 'cultural identity,’ lays claim. (Hall 68)

As Stuart Hall has indicated, identity is mutable. Such differentiations are evident in the identities of Kureishi’s characters because they come from different cultures, each of which reflects Chili, Shahid, and Deedee’s differing value systems. For example, Chili and Shahid’s parents came to Britain from Pakistan in order to create a better life for their family. Thus, Chili and Shahid’s parents expect of them to carry on the family business. However, Shahid and Chili choose not to do so because they want to follow their own dreams and assimilate into British culture. However, since Shahid and Chili are minorities, such assimilation proves difficult in a Britain whose white population, in this novel’s setting at least, is quite aware of and reacts negatively toward people of nonwhite races who migrated to Britain from former British colonies. Further, Shahid’s Muslim friends (many of whom are also Pakistani) want Shahid to follow the tenets of Islam closely. However, Shahid forfeits this religion, these friends, and his traditional Pakistani values (i.e. familial traditions) in order to follow Deedee, an English woman who abandons her traditional role of faithful wife and professional professor in order to have an affair with her student, Shahid. Finally, Shahid, Deedee, and Chili all look to American pop culture and American values in order to help construct their identities because America represents freedom and (at least nominally) provides minorities with the power to rise against inequality and protest, as is evident from the many civil rights movements that have occurred in the United States throughout the last century. Such action has been largely absent from British culture, which is a direct reason why freedom fighters such as Shahid, Chili, and Deedee all look to the United States as a beacon of hope. Thus, the American, British, and Pakistani cultures have all served to help shape, enrich, and even complicate the identities of these characters.

There are generally several different ways that critics look at Kureishi’s use of identity. For example, critics like Susie Thomas have taken the biographical approach by examining how Hanif Kureishi’s personal life impacted his writing. Thomas’s article concentrates on how Kureishi’s childhood was marked by a constant struggle between pleasing his father and idolizing his uncle. Her article goes on to explain that the author’s tension-filled relationship with his father has had an evident effect on his identity, and this impact is reflected in much of Kureishi’s work. Even though Thomas never refers directly to The Black Album, her argument that Kureishi’s personal life has inevitably leaked into his writing is still significant to how identity is presented in The Black Album. Much like in Kureishi’s own life, Shahid struggles to construct his identity in the face of his father, who belittles Shahid’s dreams of becoming a writer and instead desires for Shahid to take over the family travel agency.

Other critics like Frederick Holmes argue that Kureishi believes identity to be fluid and “mongrelized” (297). In his critical article, Holmes posits that Deedee’s influence penetrates Shahid so deeply that it overpowers and supplants the fundamentalist Muslims’ impact on his identity. Furthermore, while Holmes’s article mentions that Chili mimics the behavior of characters in Hollywood movies, the article neither explicitly examines Chili’s fixation specifically in relation to American culture nor addresses the reasons why Chili does not find a satisfying identity within the parameters of either English society or his Asian roots.

Alternatively, some critics analyze identity in The Black Album by concentrating on how sex and politics are used to shape the characters’ behavior. For example, Maria Degabriele’s article sets out to prove that Shahid and Deedee use pop culture and pornography, as opposed to fundamentalist Islamic and English culture, to help define their identities. Degabriele’s article does a great job of demonstrating how pop music icons like Prince and Madonna help shape the characters’ personalities. I would like to enrich Degabriele’s claim by adding that Madonna and Prince are directly linked to American pop culture, and Kureishi’s characters choose to ignore the pop culture influences from their own Asian

and British cultures.

While these aforementioned critics as well as other scholars verify that identity is an important factor in Kureishi’s writing, no critic has hitherto addressed, in detail, why Chili, Shahid, and Deedee have chosen to look beyond the realm of both their Asian and English cultures in order to weave their identities. I will first illustrate, in depth, the specific ways in which Shahid, Chili, and Deedee have all decided to look outside the context of their Asian and English cultures and instead have all chosen to use American pop culture to construct their identities. Next, the historical context that allowed America to supplant Britain as the ideal example from which to mimic identity will be examined and linked back to the setting of The Black Album. Finally, the broader significance of this novel’s literary style as a Bildungsroman (particularly the kunstlerroman, or an artist’s novel) and its connection to these characters’ search for identity will also be discussed.

Shahid’s older brother, Chili, uses Hollywood pop culture to help construct his identity. In complement to what Holmes articulates, just as Salman Rushdie’s Saladin (from The Satanic Verses) has a name that symbolizes his fragmented personality (salad is a mixture of many different parts), Kureishi’s Chili similarly has a name suggesting the many sources of culture available to him. For example, there are many influences in Chili’s life that he can allow to affect him, namely: traditional Islam, his Pakistani familial roots, and the English culture in which he lives. Nevertheless, Chili chooses to reject all of these potential stimuli, desiring instead to live in an imagined America. Furthermore, he is spoon-fed by the media and the goods market with ideas and products relating to America, a place where he believes “.real glory [is] possible, where he could be someone. with a high. reputation” (Kureishi 63).How-ever, in reality, Chili is stuck in “small-time, unbending England,” where it is difficult for an immigrant such as himself to be accepted into white English culture (Kureishi 63). Therefore, Chili does the closest thing possible to moving to America—he adjusts his appearance and behavior to match the portions of America’s popular culture that he has access to—

American goods and the media.

Chili is drawn to American culture because it seems more authentic and viable to him than English culture. Specifically, Chili finds a way to express his identity through American attire, goods, and actors that are not available to him through his English or Asian cultures. His fixation with America is evident by the way he is dressed when he comes to visit Shahid: “In Chili’s hands were his car keys, Ray-Bans, and Marlboros. . . Chili drank only black coffee and neat Jack Daniel’s; his suits were Boss, his underwear Calvin Klein, his actor Pacino”(Kureishi 47). Chili’s fascination with and desire to attain these American goods illustrate that Chili believes he cannot live out the American dream because he is stuck in England—a place that stymies foreign culture. However, he can at least look the part of a rich, successful American gangster like Pacino, who plays the role of a prosperous, self-made Cuban immigrant in the movie Scarface. Chili’s preference for American-made products (bar the German Boss suits) and his penchant for Pacino prove his desire for importance, for grandeur, and for being successful. He chases his idea of America—even if this means dressing and behaving just like an American actor—instead of living within a singular English or Asian standard. Chili’s desire to be like Pacino links back to the compensatory value of wanting to live in a Hollywood America (a nation where people of any nationality are, at least theoretically, encouraged to chase their dreams) as opposed to Chili’s reality of Britain (a nation where, in the 1980s years of Thatcherism, immigrants are snubbed in order to help keep racial boundaries marked).

In addition, Chili’s decision to fetishize American products and to idolize his favorite American actor not only demonstrates his love for America, but it also proves that if Chili liked England or thought there were any hope of being a successful immigrant there, he would have very likely changed the way he dressed—a significant attribute to his identity— to match such a viewpoint. However, he knows that being accepted as an English member of British society is not a viable option for a Pakistani immigrant living in post imperial Britain—an England still trying to recreate its own white identity half a century after its empire’s demolition. Therefore, instead of identifying with an English aura or his own Asian culture, both of which he finds equally unsatisfying and restrictive, Chili dresses the part for the globally mediatized American Dream. He anticipates the day when he will reach the United States, a nation whose foundation was grounded in the conviction that even immigrants can rise out of the ashes and be successful.

Thus, Chili neither looks to the media of the English culture he lives in nor to the Koran of his Asian culture for direction. Instead, he chooses to watch American movies such as Once Upon a Time in America, Scarface, and The Godfather (Kureishi 63) as mediums through which to garner American culture in order to construct his identity. Chili transfers what he sees in these movies into his real life. His actions help develop the climax of the novel, much to the degree of an American action movie, because he acts like Robert de Niro “preparing for a dueling scene” (Kureishi 278). As Holmes observes: “The plot builds to a climax in which Chili, knife in hand, descends the stairs of Deedee’s house, like nothing so much as the hero of a Hollywood blockbuster, to save her and Shahid from the depredations of Chad and his friends” (Holmes 310). However, these American movies are incongruous alternatives to the British and Asian mediums surrounding Chili, which are more relevant to his culture, and which he could have easily used to help develop his identity. Nonetheless, Chili absorbs and mimics American pop culture for the same reasons he chooses to wear American clothing—he wants to live the Hollywood American dream. Since he cannot make this dream come true, he uses American movies as mediums to help create a fantasized reality he finds fulfilling. However, Chili does not stop to consider that America, too, is affected negatively by racism. He instead idealizes himself as an American actor—a hero who saves the day—instead of an Asian immigrant who is restricted to the outer cusp of English society that is available to foreigners.

Like his older brother, Chili, Shahid eventually comes to reject the influences around him and instead chooses to look to American celebrities—as opposed to English celebrities, his Asian family, or Muslim lead-ers—to help shape his identity. Initially, however, Shahid gravitates toward the other Asian Muslims in his neighborhood and at the college he attends because he believes he can relate to them culturally. As Maria Degabriele posits, “Shahid’s search is for an identity that can simultaneously embrace Islam and popular Western culture” (Degabriele 1). However, as a Pakistani immigrant born and raised in Britain, he feels alienated from English culture and voices this anxiety to his new Muslim fundamentalist acquaintances, Riaz and Chad: “Everywhere I went, I was the only dark-skinned person. I didn’t know what [white people] were thinking. I was convinced they were full of sneering and disgust and hatred. [why can’t I be] a racist like everyone else? Why do I have to miss out on that privilege?” (Kureishi 19). Shahid’s words reveal that he had been willing to do anything—even be a racist—in order to find his place in English society. However, this desire to be a racist is ironic coming from a man who himself is profiled racially and discriminated against. His irrational longing to be a racist, in order to be accepted by the people who are racists themselves, thus perpetuates the very system that is making him feel inferior. However, Chad tells Shahid, “Only those who purify themselves can escape [racism]” (Kureishi 19). Chad and Riaz invite Shahid to become a Muslim fundamentalist, and Shahid thus abandons his desire to try to yoke his identity with English white supremacy for the chance of finding acceptance with these Asian Muslims. Shahid initially decides to “purify” himself by following the Muslim fundamentalists because he wants to identify with people who share his values and who will accept him.

Though Shahid originally wants to fit in with the other Asian Muslims, he quickly begins to realize that these fundamentalists do not approve of Shahid’s budding creativity or intellectual curiosity. Specifically, Chad—one of the Muslims who used to allow Western values to influence him before he became a fundamentalist—responds to Shahid’s supposition that the ability to think on one’s own is good: “Good? What do intellectuals know about good? .Brother, you’ve got to learn. But let’s waste no time on frippery. We got real things to accomplish” (Kureishi 30). However, it is ironic that Chad believes Shahid to be naive: it is in fact Chad who is acting simple-mindedly. He believes that there is only one correct way to belong. Chad follows the tenets of Islam so closely that he stops thinking and blocks out any previous influences on his identity, including American music, that are not directly linked to Islam. Chad and the other Muslim characters in The Black Album do not believe that people can be “good” and follow Western values at the same time. Furthermore, Chad’s expository words indicate that the fundamentalists are static characters who want Shahid, too, to stop thinking for himself. They want him to only follow their rules—to abide by the tenets of Islam and to follow conservative Pakistani cultural traditions—before he is allowed to use Islam or his Asian culture to define his identity.

Shahid finally walks away from both English culture and Islam because he does not want to limit his identity to what either set of values entails. Inhabiting either a Muslim fundamentalist identity or an English racist identity would force Shahid to choose between these two ultimatums. However, he cannot be an English racist and a Pakistani immigrant at the same time. In the same way, he cannot be accepted as a “good” Muslim and be an intellectual at the same time. On the one hand, according to the narrator, fundamentalist Islam inhibits Shahid’s intellectual curiosity, and on the other hand, English nationalism perpetuates racism. Therefore, Shahid begins fixing his attention on America—a nation that ideally allows people to think and act freely. For Shahid, America, as symbolized by Prince’s all-encompassing identity, affords freedom from Muslim fundamentalism and English racism.Prince is an icon of American popular culture, of multiculturalism, and of the mutability of identity; furthermore, he does not try to reconfigure his identity or his music to fit what people around him believe to be socially acceptable. Shahid tells his teacher Deedee that Prince is “half black, half white, half man, half woman, half size, feminine but macho, too. His work contains and extends the history of black American music.” (Kureishi 34). Shahid looks up to Prince and other multicultural Americans who are not afraid to up to Prince and other multicultural Americans who are not afraid to show their difference and who did not give in to the pressure of conforming to a certain identity in order to fit into society’s mold.

Like Chili, Shahid starts using American pop culture icons (namely, Prince) to help shape his identity. However, unlike Chili, Shahid does not directly mimic the American culture he exposes himself to, but he instead chooses to use Prince as a prototype for discovering his own identity. Shahid finds and follows his own unique path: he allows himself to flower into an artist, just like Prince. However, Shahid’s art is distinctive because it is not musical, but literary. Though Shahid looks up to Prince, he does not copy him. Rather, he looks for his own way to express himself—by creating literature. In contrast, Chili impersonates American actors and tries to become identical to exactly what he sees in American movies (as in the scene where he saves Deedee and Shahid from the fundamentalists and specifically refers to himself as “Robert De Niro” on page 278). Shahid finally fulfills his role as a writer, or in Holmes’s terminology, Shahid’s growth as a budding artist allows the novel to develop as a kunstlerroman—an artist’s novel (311). Despite the socially circumscribed situations he is faced with—the fundamentalist beliefs of his Muslim friends and his family’s desire for him to carry on the family business instead of following his dreams—Shahid still finds his own distinct path as a writer. Furthermore, he creates his own art (instead of merely replicating a pre-existing form of art) by using the American celebrity Prince as his example.

Prince is successful despite and because of his multiculturalism. Part of the reason for his success is because he lives in America, a nation with a viable post-civil rights black culture that pushed itself to the forefront ofAmerican affairs. Shahid, too, hopes to reach Prince’s level of triumph and works toward reaching it over the course of the novel. Importantly, even though multiracial people in America also experience the negative effects of racism, Shahid is drawn to American culture because Prince (much like Chili’s idol Pacino) found a way to move past this racism and instead embrace success through determination and action. Specifically,

Shahid learns about the U.S. civil rights movements in Deedee’s class (Kureishi 36). Such opposition to the status quo that occurs in America is conspicuously absent from both English culture and from his own Asian and Muslim culture. This lack drives Shahid to embrace American culture.

Another reason why Shahid idolizes Prince is because this celebrity does not try to shape his identity to match anyone else’s. According to Anthony Neal, Prince proved that people of color “.Didn't have to have these two positions: the soft R&B balladeer versus the hard-core hip-hop thug. there is no actual script for Black masculinity except whatever you choose to perform” (qtd. in Ollison 32). In other words, Prince helped pave the way for multiracial people to have a place in American society. Furthermore, though he does not identify with or become identical to anyone else, he has become so successful that “[he] has absolutely nothing to prove” (Ollison 32). Therefore, Shahid believes Prince to be a fitting role model because this American celebrity is a minority who still became successful even though his style, dress, and behavior do not adhere to the social norm. Shahid has decided not to shackle himself by trying to fit into a British or Asian identity, both of which would require him to strictly follow certain rules in order to successfully assimilate. As the narrator relates: “There was no fixed self; surely our several selves melted and mutated daily? There had to be innumerable ways of being in the world. [Shahid] would spread himself out, in his work and in love, following his curiosity” (Kureishi 285). Shahid has finally let go of the ultimatums that the fundamentalist Muslims, the English, and his family have circumscribed to stop him from thinking as an intellectual, to stop loving who he wants (Deedee, a white woman), and to stop him from writing. Like Prince, Shahid finally unfetters himself from trying to maintain the status quo. Rather, he has now embraced what he perceives as the American mindset of fluidity and freedom of expression. Furthermore, he finds fulfillment in following Prince—a man who pays little attention to binding social mores and who still found success in America. Perhaps it is not Prince himself that Shahid finds enabling but the ideas of freedom and self-expression that Shahid perceives Prince represents.

Both Shahid and Prince liberate themselves from trying to fit into the relative social constructions they are faced with. Instead, they find their own ways of reaching identity. Shahid finds identity through finally allowing himself to bloom as an artist, despite what his family and the Muslim fundamentalists expect of him, while Prince finds himself by finally breaking free from limiting himself to the kind of music his record company expects him to perform. Prince created The Black Album as a return to his black roots, despite the fact that it only survived on the

black market until 1994-the year of this album’s very limited release

(The-Black-Album.info). Prince ironically makes his Black Album record distinctly unique precisely through its vagueness. Consumers know the value of this album, as Degabriele confirms, “Prince’s The Black Album has in fact no title, no name, or illustration” (2). Therefore, consumers who go through the trouble to obtain a bootleg copy do so because they are aware that the album has quality beyond the socially circumscribed constructions of legal music. Specifically, when Chad finds Shahid’s copy of Prince’s The Black Album, he says, “Not many people have [it]. Hey, you got the bootleg CD, too,” (Kureishi 27). Both Prince and his album are symbolic of authenticity because they are not typical of the norm. Prince shows his true colors because his album consists of bootleg music that draws back to his black roots— he does not try to mold his music for a specific audience. Shahid’s desire for authenticity is symbolized by the fact that he even has this difficult-to-obtain album. Furthermore, Shahid’s decision to turn to American culture and to an American celebrity to find this authenticity signifies that he sees no desirable authenticity within the space of his own British or Asian cultures—the two sources that stifle his perceived genuineness. Shahid adopts this new-found source of perceived authenticity to his own ends when he embraces his role as the budding artist (hence the artist’s novel, or kunstlerroman).

Shahid and Chili are not the only characters in Kureishi’s novel who look to America as an example of how to liberate themselves from traditional social roles. Deedee, Shahid’s white teacher and lover, likewise looks beyond the English constructs surrounding her and instead looks to American pop culture icons in order to find authenticity. For example, when she invites Shahid to her home, she pushes “a [Prince] cassette into the video” (Kureishi 57). Deedee’s ownership of this rare tape proves the extent of her love for Prince, and the fact that she exposes the tape to Shahid illustrates that she wants him to also have access to this relatively authentic media. Like Shahid, Deedee only finds this pop culture in American culture. Deedee and Shahid’s recognition that Prince’s The Black Album is rare and unique and their effort to find his bootleg music suggest that they are not just looking for popular, readily-available American culture. Rather, they are using Prince’s media as a way to express their own desire for authenticity. Furthermore, rather than teach her class about British culture or history, Deedee starts one of her lectures by playing two songs. The first is by Marvin Gaye, and the other is by Jimi Hendrix, both of whom are American celebrities who perform music that reflects their multicultural black roots (Kureishi 36). Deedee’s decision to teach her students about America’s culture is ironic not only because she should logically be promoting British nationalism, but because Deedee, as a white native of England, should be endorsing England’s culture to her class full of immigrants in order to help them assimilate. However, her decision to teach her class about American blacks such as “King, Malcolm, [and] Davis.” (Kureishi 36) who fight racism signifies that Deedee desires a similar fight for equality in Britain and an ability for nonwhite British immigrants to express their genuine selves like Hendrix and Gaye do.

Furthermore, Deedee defines her identity by mimicking pop culture characters such as Madonna. Deedee’s name itself (the echo of the sound “dee”) links directly back to the formation of identity. In the same vein, if the word “identity” is changed to a verb, it becomes “identify.” Thus, in order to form identity, individuals look to other people’s behavior and identify with it. Deedee does exactly this: she looks to Madonna and American pop culture and not only identifies them as favorable in comparison to English culture, but also replicates Madonna’s appearance and behavior, thus attempting to become identical to Madonna. Therefore, the repetition in Deedee’s name linguistically parallels with the way she replicates and identifies with Madonna’s identity—Deedee echoes Madonna’s behavior in the same way that Deedee’s own name repeats. Furthermore, before Deedee applies makeup to Shahid’s face, she “put[s] on Madonna’s ‘Vogue’”, (Kureishi1 27) which is connected to U.S. black drag culture. The act of putting makeup on Shahid is a new, radical idea that would not necessarily be taken well in the Muslim or conservative English community. After she creates this new physical identity for Shahid, Deedee proceeds “to turn herself into pornography” (to act in a licentious manner) for Shahid “without losing her soul” (129). When Deedee pairs these licentious acts with music by the American celebrity Madonna, she is creating a link between previously restricted representations of identity and the perceived freedom of American culture.

Deedee’s love for Madonna and Prince, as opposed to British celebrities, is transferable to the microcosm of the college where Deedee chooses to teach. Degabriele asserts, “Just as Madonna has a large female following in the male-dominated musical press, so too does Deedee have a large female following in male-dominated academia” (4). Specifically, three of Deedee’s foreign (Afro-Caribbean, Indian, and Irish) female students idolize her, “dressing as she [does] and studying her as if she [is] Madonna” (Kureishi 177). These students are copying Deedee in the same way that Deedee copies Madonna, thereby proving that the search for identity outside the constructions of Englishness and within the parameters of America reaches farther than the isolated examples of Deedee, Shahid, and Chili. Thus, finding identity (the word identity itself is a cognate that is linked to words such as identify and identical—words that hinder the idea of authenticity) for Kureishi’s characters is not a matter of finding authenticity or individuality but rather of imitating the behavior of American actors. The fact that Deedee’s students copy Deedee (and by extension Madonna) further crystallizes the perceived lack of viable culture for them in racially circumscribed Britain. It also illustrates these students’ desire to look beyond their stymied culture and to reach toward an American perspective that seems more suitable for people looking for authenticity and the freedom to express themselves beyond a certain set of circumscribed beliefs.

Shahid’s and Chili’s search for identity within American culture instead of English culture or their Asian culture seems easy to justify because of the difficulties they face assimilating into English culture and finding open-minded Asians within the fundamentalist Muslim community. But why would Deedee—a white woman who has the English world at her fingertips—choose to work in a second-rate college for immigrant students (instead of one for the elite English students), to leave her white, Cambridge-educated professor husband, and to start a relationship with Shahid? The answer can be found by analyzing the fall of England’s empire and the subsequent rise of the American hegemony during a time when Britain was still evaluating its own constructions of identity, even until 1989 (when The Black Album is set).

By the end of the Second World War, Britain had lost its identity as an empire, and in order to weave a new identity following the destruction caused by the war, it invited Commonwealth and colonial citizens to immigrate to Britain to help with the rebuilding process. However, the nonwhite settlers were not well-accepted into English society and, therefore, had to find their own way of creating identity—of becoming identical to some other group in order to gain acceptance. This is because they were in a liminal space, neither accepted as English nor able to completely retain their native cultures in postcolonial Britain. Therefore, these immigrants had to find a new way to create an identity that would help release them from this liminal space. The British desire to create an empire and stamp the world with its colonial signature was a desire to create a world-wide British identity. However, after World War II and in the wake of England’s crumbling colonial infrastructure, America became a hegemonic force, both politically and culturally. Closer to the context of Kureishi’s novel, 1989 was a pivotal year for America because its Cold War victory strengthened its position as the Western symbol of liberalism and capitalism. Consequently, the United States became a source of cultural ascendency, contrasting with Britain’s cultural decline, for foreign people everywhere. This information helps clarify the reasons why Kureishi’s characters look to America for hope. Sara Upstone so fittingly argues:

With an American rather than a British background, Prince [and Madonna] suggest alternative modes of belonging. Against Englishness, defined by race and tradition, there is the possibility of a Britishness based more on American founding principles, a nation whose motto, E Pluribus Unum (out of many, one), at least in its origins, suggests belonging defined by newness, by arrival, and by what you contribute, rather than where you come from. (19)

Prince and Madonna represent these “alternative modes of belonging” because they symbolize a new source of identity—a cultural storehouse for Kureishi’s characters to identify with. Chili, Shahid, and Deedee look to American culture, as available to them specifically through pop culture, because this culture does not force individuals such as Prince and Madonna (who are presented and perceived as unique) to conform to a certain standard in order to survive within society. American culture, therefore, has replaced the need to become identical to a certain set of social constructions with a new, American-based version of reality that is linked to individualism: freedom from having to conform to any set value system. Explicitly, Chili, Shahid, and Deedee want to live each day’s new adventure “until it stops being fun” (Kureishi 287). They want to live unshackled from English society’s expectation of how they are supposed to conduct themselves. This freedom is materialized through Prince and Madonna because these American celebrities do not submit to social mandates about how they are supposed to behave as multicultural American citizens. Furthermore, they do not allow the fear of American racism to stop them from expressing themselves. This movement toward authenticity through self-expression is possible in America not because it is free of racism (which is not the case, despite what Chili, Shahid, and Deedee may imagine), but because its civil rights movements make America a place where equality is more possible than in Britain— a nation that has experienced relatively few civil rights movements. Thus, Kureishi’s characters idealize America because its civil rights struggles have attempted to forge a particular space for a black identity—a space that seems to be lacking in British culture.

Finally, the literary style of The Black Album mimics the characters’ search for identity—for identicalness. The Black Album is a traditional kunstlerroman novel. But the grand irony of this literary style begs the question: since Chili, Shahid, and Deedee are all looking outside the bounds of traditional culture to find themselves—looking toward a post imperial, post-Cold War newness—why would Kureishi write this novel in a traditional form that dates back over 200 years? Why would he choose not to write a novel like Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, a novel whose whole purpose is to converge into the realm of newness, and whose disjunctive, postmodern form matches this purpose? Joseph Slaughter suggests that:

As a human rights claim, [the Bildungsroman] is a narrative instrument for historically marginalized people to assert their right to be included in the franchise of the public sphere and to participate in the deliberative systems that shape social nor-mativity itself by setting limits between the franchised and the disenfranchised. (157)

Slaughter’s wide-ranging insight about the social function of the Bildungsroman is applicable to The Black Album. With a clever sleight of hand, Kureishi has unlatched the border separating the “franchised and the dis-enfranchised”—the British immigrant and the Englishman. Kureishi not only makes American identity accessible to his otherwise marginalized characters, but he also makes the form of his novel itself accessible to a wide range of readers through his utilization of the easy-to-read Bil-wide range of readers through his utilization of the easy-to-read Bil-dungsroman style. Similarly, the expression of authentic identity is no longer restricted to a certain class of people. Ironically, it is widely accessible to the general public, mass produced, and copied through movies such as Scarface, albums such as Prince’s, and music videos such as Madonna’s.

Kureishi has identified with a conventional literary form—the kun-stlerroman—in order to create a novel that will be meaningful to people who read it. Ultimately, there is no meaning, no significance, and no identity unless we can link ourselves back to other people by mimicking them. Kureishi has indeed provided a link to readers in the real world by writing a novel about characters who mimic the values found in a fantasized American society because these characters do not have a suitable counterpart in their British or Asian cultures to mimic or draw from in order to construct their identities. Would characters such as Chili, Shahid, Deedee, and, by extension, the author himself have a place in society if they did not configure their identities to match the social constraints around them? The mutability of Chili’s, Shahid’s, and Deedee’s identities is illustrated by their desire to mimic American celebrities. Furthermore, these characters prove that when people are not satisfied with the culture that is circumscribed within their own space, they inevitably look to other cultures in order to find a value system that is worth mimicking (as is the case for Chili) or that is worth using as an example (as is the case for Shahid and Deedee). Where does this variability position readers? At what point do our own malleable identities become changed by the mediums through which culture is transmitted to us, including Kureishi’s The Black Album, a book about the search for identity? As mutable people ourselves, we look to literature in order help shape our identities, perhaps because we find in fiction and other such mediums an imagined, idealized reality that we cannot find within the space of our own realities. This desire for otherness, for newness, and for finding identity links us back to Chili, Shahid, and Deedee— characters who find in America a definitive source through which to explore identity.

mnino

Works Cited

“1987: Welcome to the Funk Bible.” The Black Album.info. The Black Album.info, 2012.Web.    23 November 2012.

Degabriele, Maria. “Prince of Darkness Meets Priestess of Porn: Sexual and Political Identities in Hanif Kureishi's The Black Album.” Intersections: Gender, History, and Culture in the Asian Context 2 (1999). n. page. Pandora, Australia’s Web Archive. Web.    11    October    2012.

Hall, Stuart. "Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation."

Framework 36 (1989). 68-81. Scribd. Web. 13 June 2013. Holmes, Frederick M. “The Postcolonial Subject Divided between East and West: Kureishi’s The Black Album as an Intertext of Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.” Papers on Language and Literature 37.3    (2001):    296-313. Sociological Collection.

Web.    9    October    2012.

Kureishi,    Hanif. The Black    Album. New York: Simon, 1995. Print.

Ollison,    Rashod.    "Prince    and His Evolution.” Jet 118.1    (2010):

28-32. Middle Search Plus. Web. 16 Nov. 2012. Rushdie, Salman. The    Satanic    Verses.    New York:    Viking, 1989.    Print.

Slaughter, Joseph. Human Rights, INC.: The World Novel, Narrative Form, and International Law. New York: Fordham UP, 2007. Print. Thomas,    Susie.    “Hanif    Kureishi’s My Ear at His    Heart:

‘When A Writer is Born a Family Dies.’” Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education:    13.2    (2006):    185-96.

SoclNDEX with Full Text.Web. 9 October 2012. Upstone, Sara. “A Question of Black or White: Returning to Haniff Kureishi’s The Black Album.” Postcolonial Text: 4.1 (2008): 1-24. Web.    22    November    2012.

75

The Relationship between the Media and School Shootings in the Past Fifteen Years, with Regards to the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown Massacres

by Jennifer Dandron

Americans are very familiar with mass murders. In recent years, a growing number of mass murders have been attributed to school shootings. Particularly, in the last fifteen years three school shootings have devastated America, making many people question their faith in humanity. Each shooting has been a different level of the educational spectrum. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers attacked Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered fifteen people, including themselves. Not even ten years later, Seung-Hui Cho killed thirty-two people on April 16, 2007 at Virginia Tech. More recently, on December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza murdered twenty-six people, twenty of whom were young children, at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Each incident has been equally heartbreaking and humbling for those directly and indirectly involved. The media played a huge role in each occurrence. Many people have criticized the way the media handled each one, and have even gone so far as to blame the media for the shootings. Social, print, and broadcast media affect the way the public views a tragedy, which can affect media personnel and congressional activity. The media is often labeled as the enemy that is constantly pushing ethical limits, but in reality, the media is pursuing the truth in which the viewers are searching.

First, I am going to explain how the accessibility of social media most

affected the Sandy Hook massacre, and how it had more of a negative effect because of the growing number of false profiles created to provoke hate. Then, I will compare and contrast print and broadcast media and demonstrate that the broadcast media has a greater impact on more people. Following my analysis of the impact of broadcast media, I will look at journalists’ psychological responses when working in traumatic environments like school shootings. Next, I will examine how media outlets present stories to their target audiences to garner a desired response, which gains the attention of legislators. Finally, I will assess the journalist code of ethics and explain why the journalists did not breach ethics when interviewing victims. I will also provide a solid argument as to why the code of ethics needs to be revised.

Many media platforms exist in today’s technological age. Through social-networking sites, print newspapers and magazines, and broadcast news, each medium influenced responses to each shooting. In the instance of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, social media played a bigger role in garnering responses from the general public. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook experience high traffic during tragic events. Obviously, one of the main reasons that the Newtown massacre gained so much attention on Twitter and Facebook and Columbine and Virginia Tech did not is because in 1999 and 2007 social media was not as prevalent. The invention of smartphones has made social networking more accessible to everyone because the internet is at the tip of everyone’s finger. In a 2011 survey completed by the Pew Research Center, forty-two percent of all Americans who had a cell phone owned a smartphone.¹ One third of Americans have the ability to use the internet at almost any moment in the day with the use of their cell phones. The availability of the internet, which makes social networking sites more accessible, allows people to post, view, and/or link news stories to their pages. Therefore, the Sandy Hook massacre had more of an

outcry than the other two mass shootings.

Moreover, social networking sites are not limited to adult interaction. The article “Social Networks and Kids: How Young Is Too Young?” from CNN stated that in a 2006 Pew research assessment, sixty-one percent of teenagers, age ranging from twelve to seventeen, had an online profile on at least one social networking site.² Thus, not only were adults outraged by the incidents, but young people were too because of their access to social media. Young people are less inclined than adults to watch the evening news; therefore, they likely became aware of the tragedy via social media. Because social media is now such an integral part of everyday living, more people were conscious of Sandy Hook than Virginia Tech or Columbine.

Furthermore, false profiles are very common on social media sites. The CNN article “83 Million Facebook Accounts are Fake and Dupes” published in August of 2012, stated that a record number of eighty-three million accounts on Facebook were illegitimate.³ People can, and did, claim to be family or friends of the victims to receive attention. These types of attention seeking and malicious profiles incite angry, negative responses from those people who are truly upset over the tragedies. The cries of many were heard through social media. Social media’s interface allows for a public forum for all of the people who have access to the sites. People have the opportunity to express their grief and respect by simply “liking” a memorial page for the victims. Through this medium, people were able to mourn their losses as well as dispute their differences in regards to the underlying issues such as gun control laws or the mental health system. However, more people had an irate response to the Sandy Hook attack when using social media because so many profiles intended to inflict pain and suffering. Social media influenced the public’s response in the Sandy Hook tragedy more so than in the Virginia Tech and Columbine tragedies because of the open discussion boards and threads, availability, and accessibility.

Though print media has been around longer than social or broadcast media, it is failing to meet the constant demand from its users who want answers within seconds of asking a question. Consumers are so eagerly seeking instant gratification that the only way they can satisfy their wants is through using the internet, which is at their disposal thanks to smartphones. The internet houses many publications from decades ago to ten minutes ago, as well as past television news broadcast shows. In Cherian Jacob’s 2011 article “Impact of Free Online Publications on Print Media,” which was published in the journal of Advances in Management, Jacob studied the effect of free media available on the internet and print media. His research concluded that the impact of print media has been altered dramatically because of the internet.⁴Thus, print media, while an effective and resourceful research tool, is the least influential in the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown massacres. However, just because it is not the most influential does not mean that it is not influential whatsoever. Many people still read printed newspapers and magazines. The consumer’s lack of loyalty to the newspapers rather than to the news influenced the amount of coverage each incident received in print media. Time is money in the news world. Each day a choice is made between running a fairly new angle on a topic that is berated for twenty-four hours, seven days a week on cable news networks or moving onto a newer, fresher topic. By the time a new edition of the print media is released, that topic will have already been dissected and discussed on the cable network news stations. Print media has a hard time staying relevant, which means its material is old by the next publication. Therefore, all three incidents received less print exposure, which exemplifies how print media does not influence its audiences as much as other media.

Similar to social media, broadcast media is more accessible to the public than a printed news article. Therefore, the twenty-four hour cable news networks like FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC, all of which relinquished hours of air time to cover the shootings, impacted their audiences on a deeper level with their constant updates and “breaking news.” Beyond the twenty-four hour cable networks, ABC, NBC, CBS, and other prominent stations devoted countless hours to unlocking answers to questions that each incident posed. Audio and video are truly powerful instruments when reporting such heartbreaking tragedies. Sound bites of victims telling their stories and video footage of teenagers climbing out of windows trying to escape the horrific fate that very well may await them, can send chills down even the most cold-hearted person’s back. Broadcast media influenced the responses of its patrons because of the relationship it creates with the viewers. Broadcasts aim to make each viewer feel like (s)he is the only one watching and a connection has been established with the anchor. When accomplished correctly, this is a very effective tool in impacting society. The reason people were so moved by the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook coverage is because the broadcast media personalized each victim. Broadcast media illustrated the agony each community felt via real time reporting with interviews and clips from real victims.

Additionally, whatever any broadcast media outlet airs on television or streams on the internet, is saved in cyberspace forever. Almost every piece of footage from every news station when covering each incident can be found on the internet, and more specifically, on YouTube. YouTube is a special case because it is a social media site as well as a form of broadcast media. YouTube archives all of the video clips uploaded to the website. In Lauren Shohet’s article “YouTube, Use, and the Idea of the Archive,” published in the 2010 journal Shakespeare Studies, she examines the importance ofYouTube’s archives. She concludes that YouTube is a great technique when looking for lost footage that could impact society.⁵ Today, raw footage from the Columbine massacre is on YouTube. Even the school’s security camera feeds have been uploaded to YouTube. Therefore, while social media is the most accessible form of media, broadcast media has the greatest impact. While a person may search for a Facebook post from five years ago, another person can quickly type the same search inquiry into YouTube and retrieve his/her answers. Broadcast media leaves a lasting impression upon its viewers by utilizing different methods that newspapers, magazines, and social media sites cannot. Broadcast media humanizes the tragedies in such a way that it can move an audience to tears.

Just as every form of media facilitates a response from its audience, that audience’s response affects the media personnel. Oftentimes, the media is viewed as the enemy, as the underlying evil behind all that is wicked in the world. People blame the media, saying it perpetuates the violence. They assert that if the media did not show such hate-filled, appalling events, future tragedies would be avoided. If the media never aired its findings, then there would be nothing to find. After such a terrible tragedy strikes, the media is suddenly at fault. However, many people fail to realize that those who report the news are also people. Reporters and journalists are humans who have family and friends that could have very well been attacked just like any other viewer. Patrons ignore the fact that journalists have emotions. Perhaps it is because the news requires journalists to stay objective and to eliminate any personal feelings. Perhaps it is because patrons are so wrapped up in their pain and sufferings that someone must be at fault and the obvious answers (Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Seung-Hui Cho, and Adam Lanza) are just too simple of an explanation.

Journalists often develop psychological disorders after working on a traumatic case. For some, there is no worse case than a school shooting where dozens of innocent lives are destroyed for seemingly no justifiable reason. In a span of one year, November 2007 to September 2008, two school shootings took place in Finland. Comparable to American school

shootings, the incidents devastated the country. Journalists were criticized for their reporting on the story, similar to in America. A 2012 study performed by Klas Backholm and Kaj Bjorkqvist, examined a group of journalists directly and indirectly involved in the coverage of the Finnish shootings. Their article “J ournalists ’ Emotional Reactions After Working With The Jokela School Shooting Incident,” published in the Media, War & Conflict journal, reported that journalists suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, and higher stress levels. It also concluded that those journalists who were criticized for their performances had an increased level of stress.⁶ While this study was performed in a different country that experienced different shootings, it is applicable to journalists in America. Journalists in America are constantly being criticized for their performances, especially in regards to such sensitive situations like school shootings. Journalists do not have the luxury of picking and choosing which news events occur. Journalists cannot throw in the towel and call it a day. They must cover the events, as heartbreaking and gut wrenching as they are, and must do so while divorcing themselves from any emotional attachment they might have. Yet, they are still condemned for not performing to the likings of others. Journalists are not only enduring the initial shock and grief over the trauma but negative criticism, as well. Therefore, journalists are developing psychological issues that many people are ignoring.

Albeit, journalists are expected and required to have “thick skin” because of their line of work, but at the core of it, journalists are just as moved by the loss of a seven year old at the hands of a mentally deranged man as anyone else. Although, just reporting on the Columbine, Virginia Tech, and/or Newtown massacres are not always enough to incite PTSD. Psychologists A.D. Stuart and A. Marias completed a study in 2006 and reported in their article, “The Role ofTemperament in the Development

of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder amongst Journalists,” which was published in the South African Journal of Psychology, that pre-existing factors such as impulsiveness, anxiety, hostility, and others related to how a journalist handles stress, indicate the likelihood that a journalist will develop PTSD.⁷ It is understandable that a journalist’s mental traits foster the chance of a psychological disorder. When those traits are combined with traumatic exposure, journalists are far more likely to suffer from PTSD.

Furthermore, in 2003, Caroline Pyevich, Elana Newman, and Eric Daleiden performed a study on journalists who have worked in traumatic environments. In their article “The Relationship Among Cognitive Schemas, Job-Related Traumatic Exposure, And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Journalists,” published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, the psychologists support the claim that certain stressful and difficult circumstances promote symptoms of PTSD. Journalists who worked in more traumatic situations, like school shootings, were likely to develop a negative cognitive schema; journalists with negative cognitive schema were more likely to suffer PTSD.⁸ Therefore, the journalists, no matter if they were a senior reporter or a rookie, who reported on the tragedies at Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown, were likely to suffer at least some form of a negative psychological response. Likewise, the more criticism journalists receive may result in a worsened case of PTSD or depression. Every job has its stressful moments and can make people feel as if they are on the brink of falling apart. However, few jobs require that workers are to be put under so much scrutiny that when one senseless person goes on a rampage, it is suddenly that profession’s fault and responsibility to make sure such a tragedy never happens again. Journalists are necessary for democracy, but those who put themselves in that line of profession sacrifice their reputations and personal emotions in order to shed light on any situation, no matter how disturbing.

Media outlets compete for the highest ratings. The most effective way to get and/or maintain the highest ratings is to understand the target audience. It is no surprise that conservatives are more likely to tune into FOX News, while liberals are more likely to watch CNN or MSNBC. Multiple studies conducted by the Pew Research Center concluded in the article “Beyond Red vs. Blue: the Political Typology” published in May 2011, that fifty-four percent of “staunch conservatives” watch FOX News on a regular basis, while forty-four percent of the time “solid liberals” watch CNN regularly, and MSNBC nineteen percent of the time.⁹ Thus, these media outlets, while claiming to be fair, balanced, accurate and un-slanted, report the tragedies in a way that makes their audiences most comfortable. Their audiences’ reactions have the ability to result in legislative change.

Democrats advocate more for gun control than republicans do.¹⁰ Therefore, the news stations that cater more to liberal audiences are likely to report more about gun control. On the other hand, the shows that focus on conservative audiences do not want to offend their viewers, which could make them quit watching and lead to a drop in ratings. In this case, the conservative shows are more likely to tackle the mental health issue aspects that contributed to each incident. Not even a week following the Newtown tragedy, FOX News released a column calling for the rebuilding of the mental health care system.¹¹ FOX News viewers, most of whom are conservative, are going to call for legislation on mental health. Just as FOX News called for a closer look into the mental health system, MSNBC has published many articles and columns on the need for gun control. One article in particular, “Top Policy Battles of 2013: Gun control” compiled by the MSNBC staff written in December 2012, claims that republicans are the problem because they will impede progress to attaining gun control.¹² Therefore, the public’s response is facilitated by which media the viewers most prescribe. The public’s response stimulates the government to resolve the issues. Obviously, the more dramatic the news, the more coverage that event receives. The more coverage an event receives, the more response from the public. The more response from the public, the more Congress is likely to change the issue. Table 1 was compiled by Regina Lawrence and Thomas Birkland, who published an article “Guns, Hollywood, and School Safety: Defining The School-Shooting Problem Across Public Arenas," in the Social Science Quarterly journal in 2004 that examined the relationship between the media’s agenda and the congressional agenda. It displays the number of news stories that defined the problem, whether as gun control or mental health care, and the corresponding amount of legislative activity each defined problem received.¹³ The table demonstrates that when the media defines the problem, Congress takes note of it and begins to work toward a solution. Congress does so because it serves the constituents that watch these media outlets that have defined the problem. Therefore, the audiences want Congress to resolve the issue that the media has presented to them.

TABLE 1

News and Legislative Definitions of the "School-Shooting" Problem

Congressional Legislation (B*s News Stones    Record    Introduced)

Jennifer Dandron

Problem Definition    N»    %    Rank    N*    %    Rank    N    %    Rank

Guns: inadequate guncontrol laws. abundance/avaiiabiKy of guns | 163 | 42 | 1 | 44 | 19 | 1 | 12 | 21 | 2
School programs and security: Inadequate anti-violence programs and | 44 | 11 | 3 | 33 | 14 | 2 | 26 | 45 | 1
security measures at schools
Criminal justice: Need for tougher law enforcement and programs to | 3 | <1 | 8 | 32 | 14 | 3 | 6 | 10 | 3
ntervene with delinquent youths
Parents, adults, and community: Lack of adult involvement with kids and | 15 | 4 | 5 | 31 | 13 | 4 | 5 | 9 | 4
schools; parents not bong response
Pop culture: Content of TV. movies, video games, music, the Internet | 109 | 28 | 2 | 28 | 12 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 6
Mental health: Need for evaluation and treatment of depression and other | 14 | 4 | 5 | 23 | 10 | 6 | 4 | 7 | 5
mental aness
ftot drugs: As contributor to antisocial behavior, cnme. abenaton | 2 | <1 | 8 | 21 | 9 | 7 | 1 | 2 | 7
Social breakdown: Breakdown of civility, social norms, and responsible | 9 | 2 | 6 | 9 | 4 | 8 | — | - | —
behavior (nonrefcgous)
Secularism: Lack of/host*ty to prayer and religion in schools/sooety | 5 | 1 | 7 | 6 | 3 | 9 | — | — | -
Teen life: Social difficulties of adolescence (e.g., peer pressure, cfcques. | 21 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 10 | 2 | 3 | 6
'jock culture.’ etc.)
ln<*wduai character Lack of moral values | 3 | <1 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 11 | — | — | —

Note Some rtems n re sarn**e oahfcrted no denbfabte prottxn defrvton. and those categories aro not routuoiy ewdusrve. reflectng the muMacoted nature ol marry rxxvs and Congress>ona/ Record rems The N reported here wi therefore not equa the A/ 04 news stones n the me<Ja sample nor the total N ol rtems aivrfy/ed from tho Ccngrossxxvi/ Rooord.

Both the media and Congress have separate agendas but when crises of these magnitudes strike, the two converge on one aspect of the problem but diverge when competing for agenda space and defining the issue. In 1999, the media and Congress converged after Columbine, in respect to gun control but had completely different notions of what the real problem was and how to address it.¹⁴ Gun control bills were coming out of the woodwork after Columbine, similar to the way they are now after Sandy Hook and like they did after the Virginia Tech massacre. Virginia Tech established a panel after the shooting to ensure that such an event would never happen again. Gordon Davies’s article “Connecting the Dots: Lessons from the Virginia Tech Shootings,” published in the journal Professional Development Collection in 2008, reports that the panel highlighted the fact that Congress had left loop-holes in the Federal Gun Control Act of 1968.¹⁵ After the panel pointed out that fact, the public became aware of it via the media. The outrage from citizens had Congress looking into these loop-holes and the ambiguous text of Virginia’s law on gun control. Shortly thereafter, Virginia removed the ambiguities through an executive order.¹⁶ The media is powerful. The Virginia Tech massacre illuminates how powerful the media is because of the urgency with which the state altered its legislation. Therefore, Americans can expect a change in legislation soon following the Sandy Hook tragedy because the previous tragedies have affected it.

Lack of media coverage also affects whether or not legislative activity takes place. A school shooting took place in 2005 on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. The media was saturated with coverage of Columbine in 1999, but six years later, hardly any major media outlet picked up and ran the story for as long as they did Columbine. The murders went largely unnoticed at Red Lake. In the article “American Reporting Of

School Violence And 'People Like Us': A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of The Columbine and Red Lake School Shootings,” published in the Critical Sociology academic journal, written by Patricia Leavy and Kathryn Maloney, the two sociologists performed content analysis of three newspapers and discovered that the media did not cover the Red Lake incident nearly as much because it happened on an Indian Reservation rather than at an American public school.¹⁷ The target audiences of the media outlets do not include the same demographics that live on reservations. Therefore, the target audiences were less likely to care about the incident at Red Lake. If the media would have covered Red Lake as extensively as they had covered Columbine, then a call to action to end gun violence or to examine the mental health system would have been a likely response from the public. Media outlets did not necessarily find the material from Red Lake to be as controversial a subject as the other shootings because it did not resonate as deeply with the audiences.

Moreover, each media outlet took a varying approach when reporting each incident. Some people believed that the journalists breached ethical norms in their coverage. The need to expose these stories and the details leading up to the tragedies was so yearned for by the audiences that journalists did what some people consider ethically wrong. However, these journalists did not breach the code of ethics. Another source of controversy is whether or not journalists handled the shootings with objectivity. The code of ethics that journalists follow requires journalists to maintain objectivity in every circumstance.¹⁸ Journalists are humans. Humans will make mistakes and be subjective at times. Journalists should not always be expected to preserve their objectivity, especially in such emotional situations. Complete objectivity is just an idealistic goal, but

it will never happen.

Journalists who interviewed the victims at each incident were labeled as monsters lacking a heart and soul. Claims were constantly being made that interviewing the youth would ruin their psyche. However, these assertions are false and unfounded and knit from emotion not logic. Journalists interviewed young people in Finland after the shootings in November 2007 and September 2008. In 2011, Henna Haravuori, Laura Suomalainen, Noora Berg, Olli Kiviruusu, and Mauri Marttunen analyzed the impact that the media has on traumatized adolescents. The research reported in their article “Effects of Media Exposure on Adolescents Traumatized in a School Shooting,” published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, showed that the young people who were interviewed did not display any more PTSD symptoms when compared to the individuals who either refused to be interviewed or those who were not approached by the media at all.¹⁹ Therefore, the allegation that students’ psyches have been damaged and will suffer worse symptoms is negated. If that claim were true, then the victims in the Finland school shootings would have also suffered worse fates. Instead, those students who were interviewed generally had the same levels of stress and anxiety as the others. It stands to reason that those interviewed in Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Sandy Hook would follow that trend. Breaching ethics would mean that the journalists either inflicted pain and suffering unto their interviewees or that the journalists received personal gain from the interviews. However, neither of these happened; thus, they did not cross ethical boundaries.

A more realistic code of ethics in regards to objectivity should be considered for journalists to follow, especially when something as tragic as a school shooting occurs. Eliminating the idea that journalists and the media in general should remain objective one hundred percent of the time would make a more believable news cast. At least by letting the viewers know that some subjectivity may be involved in the reporting, they would not seem so deceitful. However, the extent of subjectivity should be limited to tragedies and rare occurrences and not every day agenda items; otherwise the journalists are no longer journalists but instead columnists. The Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown massacres really affected everyone involved, especially on an emotional level. The massacres brought to light the flaws of the media. It is not socially feasible to expect journalists to be forever objective because of moral ambigui-ties.²⁰ One flaw is that the media is comprised of humans. Humans view each situation differently. What is ethically wrong to one is perfectly acceptable to another. Therefore, the moral ambiguity that is always relevant hinders the journalists from being completely objective. While journalists were expected to remain objective because that is the philosophical approach of the media industry, they were not able to be because of the emotions tied to the events. Therefore, by reconstructing some parts of the code of ethics to account for human error, the media’s philosophical approaches would seem less deceptive.

Ultimately, different types of media, specifically social, print, and broadcast, influenced the public’s response to each incident. Social media, mostly in the Sandy Hook tragedy, generally had a negative response from users because of the overwhelming accounts that were fake and incited rage and hate. Print media had the least effect on each situation because it does not update as quickly, which means the news is generally a day old and lagging behind. Broadcast media, however, had the biggest impact in all three school shootings because it uses different techniques, such as audio and video, to humanize a story in ways that printed or typed words cannot. Likewise, the situations affected media personnel. People often fail to realize that the journalists reporting on the horrific incidents also have an emotional backlash to the shootings. Each form of media has a target audience that influences the way the information is presented. Many journalists tend to suffer from PTSD or other negative side effects after working in a traumatic environment, like school shootings. When the public criticizes the media, the media personnel are even more scrutinized and are even more likely to develop those symptoms. Additionally, the response garnered from each media outlet’s audience affects congressional activity and reflects the aim of the media outlet’s stance. In addition, the varying philosophical approaches impacted the way the media related the information to the public. The media outlets that did not think it breached ethical standards by interviewing victims retrieved inside information that other stations considered to be off limits. However, because no harm is likely to occur to those interviewed based off the findings of a Finnish study, the ethical standards were not broken. For ethical norms to be breached the journalists would have had to inflict pain and receive personal gain. Neither of these responses occurred, thus no ethics were breached. Although the media did not cross ethical lines when interviewing students involved, the idea that journalists should be objective in situations like these is not feasible. Instances like Columbine, Virginia Tech, and Newtown are all morally ambiguous and depend on the journalist who is reporting the story. The objective philosophical approach is completely unreasonable in these instances because it creates another ethical dilemma: being deceptive toward the audience. By modernizing the code of ethics, which would allow for subjectivity in certain circumstances, the philosophical approaches would not be tainted by false premises. The relationship between the media and school shootings is contingent upon the different forms of media, the target audiences and their responses, and philosophical approaches predetermined by the code of ethics.

¹

MacManus, Christopher. "Pew: One-third of U.S. Adults Own Smartphones." CNET News. CBS Interactive, 11 (July 2011). Web. (accessed January 9, 2013).

²

Gross, Doug. "Social Networks and Kids: How Young Is Too Young?" CNN. Cable News Network, (Nov. 2009). Web. (accessed January 10, 2013).

³

   Kelly, Heather. “83 Million Facebook Accounts are Fakes and Dupes.” CNN. Cable News Network. (Aug, 2012) (accessedJanuary 12, 2013).

⁴

Jacob, Cherian. "Impact of Free Online Publications on Print Media." Advances In Management 4.6 (2011): 56-62. Business Source Complete. Web. (accessed January 10, 2013).

⁵

Shohet, Lauren. “YouTube, Use, and the Idea of the Archive.” Shakespeare Studies 38, (January 2010):68-76. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed January 10, 2013).

⁶

Backholm, Klas, and Kaj Bjorkqvist. "Journalists’ Emotional Reactions after Working With The Jokela School Shooting Incident." Media,War &Conflict 5.2 (2012): 175-190. Communication &Mass Media Complete. (accessed January 5, 2013).

⁷

   Stuart, A.D, Marias, A. “The Role of Temperament in the Development of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder amongst Journalists.” South African Journal ofPsychology. (2006). (accessed January 12, 2013).

⁸

   Pyevich, Caroline M., Elana Newman, and Eric Daleiden. "The Relationship Among Cognitive Schemas, Job-Related Traumatic Exposure, And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Jour

⁹

nalists." Journal OfTraumatic Stress 16.4 (2003): 325. SoclNDEX with Full Text (accessed January

¹⁰

2013).

¹¹

   Ablow, Keith. "How to Rebuild the Mental Health System in America." Fox News. FOX News Network, 20 Dec. 2012. (accessed January 11, 2013).

¹²

   MSNBC Staff. "Top Policy Battles of 2013: Gun control." MSNBC. MSNBC, (Dec. 2012). (accessed January 12, 2013).

Lawrence, Regina G., and Thomas A. Birkland. "Guns, Hollywood, And School Safety:

¹³

   Defining The School-Shooting Problem Across Public Arenas." Social Science Quarterly (Blackwell Publishing Limited) 85.5 (2004): 1193-1207. Academic Search Complete. (accessed January 13, 2013).

¹⁴

   Ibid.

¹⁵

   Davies, Gordon K. "Connecting the Dots: Lessons from the Virginia Tech Shootings." Change 40, no. 1 (January 2008): 8-15. Professional Development Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed January 10, 2013).

¹⁶

   Ibid.

¹⁷

   Leavy, Patricia, and Kathryn P. Maloney. "American Reporting Of School Violence And 'People Like Us': A Comparison Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Columbine And Red Lake School Shootings." Critical Sociology (Sage Publications, Ltd.) 35.2 (2009): 273. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. (accessed Jan. 12 2013).

¹⁸

   "Society of Professional Journalists" Society of Professional Journalists: Page Not Found. Society of Professional Journalists, n.d. (accessed January 10, 2013).

¹⁹

Marttunen, et al. “Effects of Media Exposure on Adolescents Traumatized in a School Shooting.” Journal fTraumatic Stress. Vol. 24, No 1. Pg 70-77. (2011). (accessed January 9, 2013).

²⁰

Altun, Fahrettin. "Media Ethics and Discourse of Impartiality." Galileo. Turkish Journal of Business Ethics, (Nov 2011). (accessed January 9,2013).

mnino

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Ablow, Keith. "How to Rebuild the Mental Health System in America." Fox News. FOX News Network, 20 Dec. 2012. (accessed    January    11,    2013).

Altun, Fahrettin. "Media Ethics and Discourse of Impartiality." Galileo. Turkish Journal of Business Ethics, (Nov 2011). (accessed    January    9,2013).

Backholm, Klas, and Kaj Bjorkqvist. "Journalists’ Emotional Reactions After Working With The Jokela School Shooting Incident." Media, War & Conflict 5.2    (2012):    175-190.

Communication &Mass Media Complete. (accessed January 5, 2013).

"Beyond Red vs. Blue: The Political Typology." Pew Research Center for the People and the Press RSS. Pew Research Center, (May 2011). (accessed January 12,    2013).

Davies, Gordon K. "Connecting the Dots: Lessons from the Virginia Tech Shootings." Change 40, no. 1 (January 2008): 8-15. Professional Development Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed    January    10,    2013).

Grant, David. "How Democrats Might Get to 'yes' on Gun Control." The Christian Science Monitor. The Christian Science Monitor, (Jan 2013). (accessed Jan. 2013).

Gross, Doug. "Social Networks and Kids: How Young Is Too Young?" CNN. Cable News Network, (Nov. 2009). Web. (accessed    January    10,    2013).

Jacob, Cherian. "Impact Of Free Online Publications On Print Media." Advances In Management 4.6 (2011): 56-62. Business Source Complete. Web. (accessed January 10,    2013).

Kelly, Heather. “83 Million Facebook Accounts are Fakes and Dupes.” CNN. Cable News Network. (Aug, 2012) (accessed January    12,    2013).

Lawrence, Regina G., and Thomas A. Birkland. "Guns, Hollywood, And School Safety: Defining The School-Shooting Problem Across

Public Arenas." Social Science Quarterly (Blackwell Publishing Limited) 85.5 (2004): 1193-1207. Academic Search Complete. (accessed    January    13,    2013).

Leavy, Patricia, and Kathryn P. Maloney. "American Reporting Of School Violence And 'People Like Us': A Comparison Of Newspaper Coverage Of The Columbine And Red Lake School Shootings." Critical Sociology (Sage Publications, Ltd.) 35.2 (2009): 273. Publisher Provided Full Text Searching File. (accessed Jan. 12 2013). MacManus, Christopher. "Pew: One-third of U.S. Adults Own Smartphones." CNET News. CBS Interactive, 11 (July 2011). Web.    (accessed    January    9,    2013).

Marttunen, et al. “Effects of Media Exposure on Adolescents Traumatized in a School Shooting.” Journal ofTraumatic Stress. Vol. 24, No 1. Pg 70-77. (2011). (accessed January 9, 2013). MSNBC Staff. "Top Policy Battles of 2013: GunA control." MSNBC.

MSNBC, (Dec. 2012). (accessed January 12,    2013).

Pyevich, Caroline M., Elana Newman, and Eric Daleiden. "The Relationship Among Cognitive Schemas, Job-Related Traumatic Exposure, And Posttraumatic Stress Disorder In Journalists." Journal Of Traumatic Stress 16.4 (2003): 325. SoclNDEX with Full Text (accessed January 10,    2013).

"Society of Professional Journalists: Page Not Found." Society of Professional Journalists: Society of Professional Journalists, n.d. (accessed    January    10,    2013).

Shohet, Lauren. “YouTube, Use, and the Idea of the Archive.” Shakespeare Studies 38, (January 2010):68-76. Literary Reference Center, EBSCOhost (accessed January    10,    2013).

Stuart, A.D, Marias, A. “The Role ofTemperament in the Development of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder amongst Journalists.” South African Journal of Psychology. (accessed January 12,    2013).

94

They Bleed on Both Sides

by Charlotte Grady

Through the unfolding action in Hamlet, William Shakespeare clearly presents two sides of the human psyche. The play begins with Hamlet’s discovery of his father’s murder, moving forward to reveal his struggle with revenge. Laertes makes the same discovery more than halfway through the play’s action and proceeds to mirror the titular character in situation. Both men are young, educated, of high standing, have a great love for Ophelia, and—most crucially—both struggle with the grief of their fathers’ murders. Yet Laertes does not simply serve as a foil to Hamlet; he does not simply serve to reinforce the central character’s qualities. The vast difference between their approaches to avenge their fathers illustrates the destructive nature of revenge. Hamlet appears overly-analytical and Laertes emotionally rash, yet both characters die in the same fashion. In approaching a production that pits Laertes and Hamlet against each other and emphasizes their differences, an examination of each man’s action and language within Hamlet’s text starts this production process.

Discussing Hamlet’s most crucial qualities, Lee A. Jacobus in his introduction to the play asserts, “above all things, he was an intellectual, a person of wide-ranging knowledge and intelligence, a reliable commentator with a probing mind” (210). Hamlet’s characteristic indecision and overly analytical nature become clear in Shakespeare’s text through the character’s language. Hamlet’s choice of words is not only an indication, so often assessing and questioning, but the length of his speeches and so-liloquies—his obsessive reasoning poured out line after line—serve to reveal his meticulous thinking. Presented with the task to avenge his beloved father in act 1, scene 5, Hamlet chastises himself for failing to act or devise a plan for revenge in act 2, scene 2, in a soliloquy spanning from line 536 to line 593. Within the fifty-seven lines, Hamlet, ironically, considering the length of the speech, scolds himself:

This is most brave,

That I, the son of a dear father murdered,

Prompted by heaven and hell,

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words And fall a-cursing like a very drab,

A scullion. (2.2.570-74)

Acknowledging a major flaw within himself, he criticizes his inclination to express his inner struggle by speaking rather than acting. Similarly, in the famous “To be or not to be” speech, Hamlet touches on the relationship between action and thought, pondering:

Thus the conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. (3.1.84-89)

Hamlet recognizes so concisely (and poetically) that so much thinking hinders the pursuit of action which sparked the thought in the first place. Yet within these realizations he becomes a victim of the thoughts he discusses, unpacking his heart with words instead of getting his task accomplished.

By act 3, scene 4, Hamlet has done little in the effort to avenge his father other than arrange a play (something which attempts to harm Claudius with words and images and no direct physical contact), and the prime example of his failure to make a choice plays out. Sword in hand, ready to kill, thought and questioning overcomes Hamlet, restraining him from accomplishing his goal in an ideal moment. With the words, “Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent,” Hamlet justifies his inaction by claiming that there may be another time more suited in the future to kill (3.3.89). He asks himself just before, “And am I then revenged, / to take him in the purging of his soul,/ when he is fit and seasoned for his passage” (3.3.84-86)? He falters in taking direct action as a result of analyzing the possible murder setting. Hamlet considers that because Claudius is in prayer, the vengeful murder could send the victim to Heaven rather than Hell. He stops to speak and analyze outcomes (in a speech spanning from line 74, the moment he realizes the moment is perfect to take action, until line 97) rather than knowing the action that must take place and quickly, actively following through with it. This incites guilt. Shortly after, while in his mother’s room, Hamlet cries out to his father’s ghost, “Do you not come your tardy son to chide / that, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by / th’ important acting of your dread command?” (3.4.110-113). Hamlet is not the decisive, rash character who could take action as his father wants when the first opportunity for revenge is presented. In examination of Hamlet’s actions in fulfilling the duty he swore to his father, by the end of act 3, he has arranged a play and accidentally murdered the wrong man.

Hamlet’s overly-analytical, verbose consideration in taking revenge against his father’s murderer, specifically in the examples above (though the text contains several more), contrasts excellently with Laertes’ similar situation. Jacobus in his commentary of the play observes, “But his [Polonius’] son, Laertes, loved Polonius, and when Laertes returns grief-stricken, with the support of the people, he, unlike Hamlet, does not hesitate a moment to get his revenge” (211). In examining Laertes’ language and action, the character clearly exhibits a sense of urgency and rashness in his reaction to his father’s death and his reaction to the pursuit of revenge. While Hamlet is prompted by the ghost of his father to take revenge, Laertes, directly and aggressively declares revenge on his own, prompted only by the knowledge of his father’s death. Within ten lines of being told Polonius is dead, he says, “. . .only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father” (4.5.137-38). The quickness of this response and lack of preceding explanation does not necessarily reveal a healthy sense of direction and assertiveness, but reveals more clearly a sense of heightened, rash emotion. As previously discussed, Hamlet fails to kill his father’s murderer in a prime moment because he considers and analyzes the consequences of murdering a praying man. So unlike Hamlet’s cautious and seemingly rational approach that seems to honor and maybe fear the sense of a higher power, Laertes, when presented with the question of what he would do to avenge his father, quickly, without any seen rational reasoning, replies, “To cut his throat i’ the church” (4.7.128). In the same scene Laertes and Claudius develop a scheme for revenge that is executed in act 5 while Hamlet talks of revenge from act 1 and does not take significant action to actually harm his target until the end of act 5. Again, Hamlet appears to show an awareness of his own verbosity instead of taking action. In Laertes’ case, he says to Claudius, “I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze, / But that this folly drowns it,” implying that he is too upset to spend his time speaking of his feelings, but that he chooses to move forward toward action. Not only does he refrain from talking about his emotions, but he physically moves toward action in an exit from the stage.

Laertes’ emotional recklessness is exhibited clearly in two particular examples in the text, both dealing with the death of his beloved sister, Ophelia. The first reveals a lack of control over his emotions, taking place just after hearing the news of Ophelia’s fate. He responds:

Too much water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will. (4.7.186-89)

He announces that he will not be overly emotional, that he will not cry, but ultimately loses his composure anyway and weeps. Another example of Laertes’ emotional overflow occurs at the scene of Ophelia’s burial. So overcome with grief, he physically leaps in the grave and embraces her, not attempting to restrain his emotion. Hamlet ultimately comes to a breaking point in this scene as well after so long—an image crucial to the production concept that will be discussed later. act 5 sets the two characters up for comparison. After aggressively confronting Laertes after the death of Ophelia, Hamlet confides in his close friend:

Too much water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will. (4.7.186-89)

Greater tension builds through Hamlet’s admission that Laertes’ actions have been bold and that he stands in such a similar position.

In approaching the topic of Hamlet’s analytical nature versus the emotional rashness of Laertes within the play, certain directorial choices in tackling the production can significantly emphasize the two opposite paths by highlighting the contrast between Hamlet and Laertes. This is not to say that the production’s theme is “Laertes and Hamlet are very different,” but by juxtaposing their different reactions to the pursuit of revenge within the production, the audience can discover a deeper theme: both analytical and rash approaches to revenge, however opposite they appear, will destroy.

Beginning with the script, a director of Shakespeare must keep the lines of the text directly relating to his or her directorial concept and theme. In a production focusing on Hamlet’s delay that uses Laertes as an example of rashness, such lines as mentioned earlier or the multitude of other references to “thought,” “words,” or “action,” must be kept as significant sources of the production’s theme. This could leave other portions free for cutting out (if the director chooses to trim the text for time or any other purpose) that may lend themselves to other themes not specifically focused on in the particular production.

Along with cutting the script, choosing a point for the play’s intermission can also serve as a significant indication of concept and theme, though it may seem trivial and not ultimately connected to the action that actually occurs on the stage. Within act 3, a director choosing to use the end of act 3, scene 2 (Hamlet’s failure to kill Claudius while praying) as a break for the audience could communicate the focus for the production, not just a choice made because of time (although for timing purposes this point is very close to the middle of the action).

let’s failure to kill Claudius while praying, built up by elements such as music, lighting and space that suggest great tension and shattering release, as the turning point of the story, allows the rest of the play’s action to stand as the chaotic action resulting from Hamlet’s inclination to contemplate and assess rather than carry out his deed when the audience joins the theatre again for the last half of the play (Polonius’ death, Ophelia’s insanity, the duel). And while the first half lacks much of Laertes’ presence, the second half will be full of it upon the audiences’ return to their seats.

In regards to casting, selecting two actors with striking physical discrepancies (for example, casting a 5’9” 160 pound Hamlet with dark hair, then and a muscular 6’2” 200 pound blonde Laertes) sets up their opposition in character to readily manifest onstage with just their presence. The audience will be reminded of their striking opposition but will slowly see that although they seem so dissimilar—emotionally, physically, and mentally—circumstances bring them to the same place and ultimately the same destructive end. Along with casting, costuming can also enhance the superficial discrepancies between the two. With this production concept, the highly emotional qualities of Laertes and the intellectual qualities of Hamlet can be emphasized by dressing Hamlet in grays and softer washed-out colors to bring out his cool, restrained, methodical nature (trying to see “gray” areas and not just the obvious black and white). Laertes’ character can be reflected in bright, bold colors, quite literally having the potential to “wear his emotions on his sleeve.” For example, for every scene that Laertes wears an emotionally indicative color (red for rage, green for jealousy, blue for sadness, etc.), Hamlet would appear, juxtaposed, in a tame gray, or generally washed-out color. A costume designer should note also the influences of different cultures on the two characters, again pitting the emotional against the intellectual, presumably incorporating French influence in Laertes’ wardrobe, considering his time spent abroad during most of the play’s action, and German influences in Hamlet’s, having studied at Wittenberg.

Actors’ interpretations and certain inflections can have a major impact on the production’s effect as well. This is not limited to lines delivered from Laertes and Hamlet, as one line bringing to prominence a comparison between the two comes from Claudius: “What would you undertake/ to show yourself in deed your father’s son / more than in words?” (4.7.125-27). While the line may seem like a logical question asking Laertes what his plans are, if the actor stresses such words as “you,” “show,” and “more than words” in a way that indicates an awareness and manipulation of Hamlet’s pensiveness and lack of action, the two are set apart and pitted against each other again, this time directly and encouragingly by the villain. Similarly, during the burial of Ophelia, in Hamlet’s attack on Laertes, he says, “Swounds, show me what thou’lt do. / Woo’t weep? Woo’t fight? Woo’t fight? Woo’t fast? Woo’t tear thyself?” (5.2.268-69). A delivery of this line, for example, containing a hint of mockery and subtext that acknowledges Laertes’ active life can significantly build tension between the two characters. By emphasizing with mockery and even buried jealousy, the actor playing Hamlet conveys an acknowledgement of Laertes’ active character, motivated often by raw, honest emotion, against his own.

For a director, creating certain visual images and stage pictures involving the two characters can be the most powerful means of conveying the production’s theme. As mentioned earlier, the death of Ophelia drives both characters to a greater emotional level, with the graveyard scene showing both characters coming to a desperate emotional intensity not previously seen from either of them, particularly Hamlet. Before this moment, Laertes has been characterized largely by his emotional breakdown after the news of Ophelia and his quick declaration to kill his father’s murderer, while Hamlet has been characterized largely by his verbosity and contemplation. Yet in this moment, the image of the two grappling, upstage, center, in a defined, choreographed but natural fight, on the grave site presents a deep human connection between them. Having been so set apart in their responses earlier, they are brought down together so intensely and similarly by the commonality of love for Ophelia.

The most significant image for this entire production concept involves the two men dying just after the climax of play, once the two have essentially taken each other’s lives. In the ideal picture, Laertes lies on the ground and outstretches his hand with the words, “exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet. / Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee, / nor thine on me” (5.2.322-24). Hamlet feebly crawls on the ground, holding his wound, to come to his level. Both vulnerably surrendered to each other on the ground, weak and dying with the realization that this vengeful pursuit has killed them. Hamlet, taking Laertes’ hand like a brother, declares, “Heaven make thee free of it! I will follow thee” (5.2.325). After Hamlet’s final words and the arrival of Fortinbras, the audience is then left with the image of the two reconciled men dead together at center stage.

This final picture shows the once individual, distinct characters ultimately become, despite the honor they might receive after death, totally equal corpses. Again, the production theme is not “Hamlet and Laertes are different.” The aim is not simply to compare the two and certainly not to show that one character had a better way of handling the situation. By focusing in production and in textual analysis on their seemingly opposite characteristics, the fact that their deaths are nearly identical brings forth a tragic irony: the notion that the pursuit of revenge, whether executed meticulously or rapidly, ends in destruction.

mnino

Works Cited

Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Types of Drama: Plays and Contexts. 8th ed.

Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Pearson, 2001. 309-90. Print. Jacobus, Lee. Introduction. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Drama.

2nd Edition. New York: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1996. 209-13. Print.

104

The Importance of the Themes in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, Movement I

by Alex Lipsky

Tchaikovsky wrote his Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 35, in 1878 while at a Swiss resort recovering from depression due to his unhappy marriage. It was originally dedicated to Iosif Kotek, his lover, but Tchaikovsky changed his mind for fear of the gossip that would result.

The first movement is in sonata form with two main themes, A and B. Both themes are crucial and important to the movement. One aspect of importance is that they are used frequently throughout the movement; every major section of the form starts with a statement or reference to a theme. In fact, 52% of the movement is thematic; the other 48% is transitional, introductory, and developmental. This heavy use of the themes makes them especially memorable by the end of the movement. For a concerto movement to be 52% thematic is highly unusual. Most concertos exhibit a substantially larger percentage of transitional and developmental material with much less time spent on themes. (It should be understood that “theme” and “thematic” refer here to relatively selfsufficient passages that contain large amounts of thematic material and not to passages that contain thematic motives or smaller amounts of thematic material.) By comparison, the first movements of two other important violin concertos, Beethoven’s Concerto in D Major, Op. 61, and Mozart’s Concerto No. 3 are only 6% and 17% thematic, respectively. Another important aspect of the themes is how they unify the piece through their step-wise, middle ground motion.

The sonata form of the movement is almost textbook, with a clear exposition, development, and recapitulation. The exposition is 127 measures long; the development is 83 measures long; the recapitulation is 90

measures long; the coda is 45 measures long. Both themes are stated in the tonic key during the exposition, establishing a clear sense of tonality. Even though the A theme returns at the end of the exposition, suggesting a rondo form, the movement is better described as a sonata form with a first theme that repeats in rondo fashion.

The music moves into the dominant key, A Major, in the development, at m.128 with the appearance of G-sharp. (It is typical to start the development in V in sonata-allegro form.) The cadenza, mm. 211-221, serves as transitional material, moving back to I for the recapitulation at m. 222. Both themes return in the tonic as in the exposition. The content of the recapitulation is similar to that of the exposition until m. 302, the beginning of the coda. The coda contains no thematic material and remains in I until the end.

Part of the first theme (theme A) is introduced in the accompaniment before the soloist begins. The theme’s motive, quarter note — quarter note — 4 sixteenth notes — quarter note, starting in m.10, is repeated four times, moving higher every time, building up intensity for the soloist’s entrance: as the notes progress from C-sharp — G-sharp and then up an octave, the intensity of the music increases dramatically (see

FigJ).

Figure 1. Motivic resemblance in introductory phrase

Although this motive is thematic in nature, it does not present the theme as a whole. The presentation of the theme in its entirety relieves the tension built up by the thematic fragments introduced by the accompaniment.

The entrance of the solo violin with the orchestra is in m. 23 with a five-bar introductory phrase leading to the first theme. This phrase stops the momentum of the orchestra, allowing the soloist to play and providing a radical shift of mood to introduce the theme. This new tempo establishes the pacing for the orchestra and soloist in m. 28.

The introductory phrase contrasts with both themes. It begins in the lower register of the violin, moving to the higher register in just one measure, exhibiting a range twice that of either theme. This phrase is five measures long with a big cadence only at the end; the themes, however, are composed of two phrases that are sequences of each other. The melody goes in an upward and downward cycle, reaching two peaks before moving downward towards the first theme. The phrase is composed mostly of eighth notes and sixteenth notes with a few quarter notes. It has no rhythmic or melodic motives of the first or second theme, but it does share the use of stepwise-motion. While the themes are based on the step-wise motion of the M2, the introductory phrase uses chromatic motion, using the m2.

Theme A enters in m. 28. The entrance of the six measure A theme occurs in m. 28 and is in the tonic key of D. The main idea of the first theme is contained in the first four bars followed by a thematic extension. The four measures consist of two-measure units whose structural pitches mirror each other; the second two measures start like a sequence of the first. The theme contains four structural notes, F-sharp-E, G-A. The rhythm gets faster the higher the melodic line goes (see Fig.2).

The theme’s extension is a basic idea that is repeated twice (see Fig.3).

m. 32    l[    m. 33

/|S    2 ^_0^    2 ^ .2^ 3    3

Hf Jff\\ if

Figure 3.Theme A’s extension with two repeated ideas

Theme A is brought back at m. 41 after a long, chromatic, cadenzalike scale, but up an octave from the primary theme A in m. 23. The change in register increases the sound production and helps this statement of the theme be more pronounced, varied, and intense. This thematic    reference    follows the    same basic    line,    but    adds    more

ornamentation and    chords to the melody. These    chords added to the sec

ond statement of theme A help provide a fuller sound.

The violin in mm. 47-68 has transitional material to the introduction of the second theme (theme B) in m. 69. It is emphasized by a naturally occurring retardation, creating variety from the fast-paced 21 measures preceding it (see Fig.4).

This retardation makes the arrival of the theme in m. 69 that much more satisfying.

Theme B is two bars long and is composed of quarter and sixteenth notes. Like theme A, it is in two parts, the second starting as a sequence up a M2. The structural pitches of this phrase are A-B (see Fig.5).

m. 69    m.    70    m.    71

i i-1-1 _

J> 4 l.l Iff | *1= |  | 1----1 | —■ f ft
fj " |  |  |  |  | 1 1 1 r V 4⁻¹ ^

Figure 5. Theme B; structural pitches

Theme B has two structural notes as opposed to theme A, which has four. The overall motion of both themes tends upward, increasing the intensity of the music. Theme B is repeated a second time atm. 75 and a third time at m. 81, but down an octave, on the G string, making the arrival to the high F in m. 89 more climactic. The music covers almost four octaves in mm. 81-89. This rapid change from a low to high octave builds intensity and provides variety within the theme itself and timbre of the instrument.

Parts of theme B are found in mm. 89, 91, 93, and 94. The motive, quarter note — quarter note — 4 sixteenth notes — quarter note, is all that is present (see Fig. 6).

In these four measures, only one measure of theme B is present; it does not resolve or continue, as did the first statement of theme B in m.69. The repetition of only fragments of theme B builds anticipation for a full statement of the theme that never comes. With the note values of the section increasing and the intensity created by the theme, a level of excitement is built up over the next thirty-two measures until the triumphant return of the theme A in m.127. The violin part’s virtuosic passages serve as a flashy transition until the orchestra re-introduces

theme A at m. 128 in V(A).

In the development, there are thematic references to both themes starting at m. 157. There are fragments of theme A’s melodic line in mm. 161-164. The same melodic motion is present, but it is interrupted by continuous sixteenth notes, which obscure the melody. The first, second, and fourth beats contain the structural notes in the first four measures. Thematic material falling on the downbeats helps distinguish the thematic sixteenth notes from the ornamental ones. The structural notes of this four bar phrase are E-D-F-E. This repetition of the theme is different from the primary theme A because it starts a whole step lower. This thematic excerpt is also different because the third crucial note resolves down instead of upward, like the primary theme A presented in m. 28 (F-sharp —E — G - A). These same four bars are repeated at m. 169 to start the second half of this section. Both halves of this section begin with thematic material, but differ after the first nine measures. The first half, after the theme, displays a more melodic idea, with scale-like motion and only one note played at a time: the second half, instead, builds upon a pattern using chords and repetition rather than scales and singlenote ideas (see Fig-⁷)-

The cadenza, the last section of the development, provides the next appearance of theme A. The solo part is full of chords and numerous

arpeggios leading into the theme. The rhythm is altered from its original form (quarter note — quarter note — 4 sixteenth notes — quarter note, to an eighth note — quarter note — 4 sixteenth notes - eighth note). Aside from the rhythmic difference, the melodic idea remains the same with three emphasized notes and upward then downward motion. The most popular interpretations of this cadenza exaggerate the rhythms in the theme’s appearance to emphasize the melodic notes: C-sharp — E-A and D-sharp -F-sharp — G—sharp (see Fig.8).

- 0 B | S * |  |  | — ■+ | \ * |  |  | L | L | ft. A. * Jk. | - o
|  |  |  |  | * |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
1 |  |  | * | * |  |  |  |  |  | 9- |

Figure 8. References to theme A in cadenza; structural pitches

This thematic passage is similar to the original because the distance between the starting pitches is a whole step. However, they both phrase off in a downward direction unlike the original, where the first statement moved downward and the second statement moved upward. This change in phrasing provides diversity. The themes are not repeated verbatim; small alterations are made in rhythm, range, and phrasing. The structural notes have tenuto markings that elongate and emphasize them even before any alterations of the rhythms are made. This emphasis on the theme helps it to be heard in the midst of the flashy, characteristic material of the cadenza. The second section of the cadenza starts with theme B. Theme B, like theme A, is also highly decorated with chords and varied rhythm. The structural pitches are F-G-A-B.

Theme B is introduced a final time in m. 251. As in its very first appearance, it is prefaced by a written-inritardando and multiple, virtuosic runs. However, this time the theme’s structural notes are D-E-F-sharp instead of A-B-C sharp, as in m.251-253. There are references to the rhythmic motive, quarter note-quarter note, four sixteenth notes, quarter note, in mm. 257, 258, 264, 266, 268, and 269. The thematic elements in mm. 264-272 are almost identical to mm. 89-94 when theme B is first introduced. The theme is connected to triplets, and then sixteenth notes in both passages. The higher the crucial note gets, the faster the rhythm becomes. This theme is presented similarly to the same theme shown in m. 69. This time the theme reaches a peak when the violin’s notes are located in 8 th and 9th position starting in m. 260. Any melody played this high on a string instrument is impossible to ignore and therefore implies importance. Since this is the final thematic statement of the movement, it makes sense that it ends with a big gesture.

mnino

113

Fluency and Guided Repeated Oral Reading

by Sarah Lively

Is reading fluently important for children’s academic future? Currently, the United States is facing a national reading crisis. Thirty percent of American students have reading difficulties in addition to another thirty percent having extreme reading difficulties (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000). The academic drawbacks of reading problems have serious implications. Children are expected to read fluently by the end of 1st grade. By 3rd grade, children are expected to read for learning. Thus, poor readers are susceptible to the “Matthew Effect”; good readers are enriched by their reading and poor readers fall further behind (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000). These students are at a disadvantage in all curriculum areas, creating limitations to their future academic success (Dudley, 2005). “Often they [struggling readers] drop out of school, earn lower incomes, and experience underemployment at a disproportionately higher rate than their average reading peers” (Dudley, 2005, pp.16-17).

Conversely, reading fluently is not a direct curriculum topic, but an underlying basic skill that is often neglected in school (National Reading Panel, 2000). Previous research has found that reading fluency and reading comprehension have a positive correlation (Fuchs, Fuchs, Hosp, & Jenkins, 2001). Reading fluency and comprehension significantly influence children’s academic and career opportunities. How can the educational system fail to provide children with these fundamental proficiencies?

Several explanations may clarify the reason why reading fluency has been forsaken in the school system. Teachers may possibly assume students already possess these skills. Moreover, enthusiastic teachers may focus too much attention on the wrong types of fluency strengthening exercises. For example, children are often asked to read silently to themselves. This independent reading approach lacks feedback and has no known positive relationship in strengthening reading skills (National Reading Panel, 2000). In fact, studies clearly demonstrate that teacher student dyads are superior to student silent reading when trying to improve fluency (Rose, 1984). Additionally, research found that a teacher read model had superior fluency effects on students when compared to a computer read model and no preview model (Dawson, Venn, & Gunter, 2000). Both the studies from Rose and Dawson et al. aline with a report from the National Reading Panel (2000) that stated guided repeated oral reading has considerable positive influence on fluency, word recognition, and word comprehension. So, reading fluency and comprehension can be improved with specific and proven evidence-based practices.

In order to improve fluency, it must first be defined and described in measurable terms. Fluency is described as a word recognition and comprehension skill demonstrated by speed and accuracy during reading (Kamhi, 2003). Reading fluency is measured by the number of words read and pronounced correctly (Kamhi, 2003). Perhaps reading comprehension and word recognition is a fluency trait evident in a speaker’s natural rhythm and flow when orally reading a passage. For that reason, struggling readers who are not fluent may be able to decode words, but lack the smooth and automatic process needed for word recognition and comprehension (Rasinski, 2000).

The purpose of this study was to provide further evidence that guided repeated oral reading has a positive impact on reading fluency as measured in words read correctly per minute. Three conditions were evaluated: independent reading, instructor modeled reading, and reread of instructor modeled reading. This article attempts to replicate the findings of the National Reading Panel (2000), once again indicating guided repeated reading as a reliable and valid approach to developing stronger, more fluent readers.

Method Subjects.

Two people participated in this study, one instructor and one student. At the time of the study, the student, Bill, was a 9-year-old boy attending 4th grade at a public elementary school. Staff members of the reading clinic indicated that he was on a 4th grade reading level. The instructor, Sally, was a 30-year-old, nontraditional student studying communication sciences and disorders in an undergraduate program at a state university. Sally’s interests relevant to her field include reading, language, and hearing disorders.

Setting.

The setting was a small resource room in a reading clinic at a state university. The resource room was a carpeted area with four tables in each corner facing the wall. All tables had two chairs that sat side by side, providing one chair for the instructor and one chair for the student. During the reading, three other instructor-student groups were simultaneously conversing, making for a noisy environment. However, the overlap of conversation did not seem to distract or bother Sally nor Bill.

Operational Definition.

The dependent variables in this study were words read correctly. A word read correctly was defined as each word the participant properly identified and orally read. Self-correction and part or whole word repetitions did not count as errors. Errors included omitted or skipped words, mispronunciations, substitutions of words, transposition of words, and/or words given by instructor. Hyphenated words, compound words, and contractions were counted as one word. Chapter number and title words were omitted from the word count and were not read.

Instrumentation.

The book selected for this reading fluency research was The Awesome Aquarium Mystery by Carole Marsh, paperback edition. The publisher of the book designates The Awesome Aquarium Mystery appropriate for ages eight and older and 3rd grade or higher reading levels. Two copies were made of The Awesome Aquarium Mystery’s chapters 1-3. During the study,

Bill read from one copy and the other copy was later utilized for interrater agreement. A Sony digital voice recorder was used to document the entire reading session. One-minute sessions were tracked using the Android Clock Stopwatch Timer. Finally, a pencil was used to guide instructor reading, allowing the student to visually follow the instructor’s reading model.

Instructions Independent passage.

For each independent passage, Bill was told to read as many words as fast as possible during the one-minute time period. The participant was given a starting point and cued when to begin and when to stop at the end of one minute according to the stopwatch.

Modeled passage.

For each modeled passage, the paragraph immediately following the independent passage was chosen as a starting point. Prior to the instructor’s modeled reading, Bill was directed to pay attention, listen closely, and visually follow the pencil along the passage as the instructor read clearly, concisely, and with good intonation for one minute. Next, the student was informed to read for one minute as quickly as possible starting exactly where the instructor had just begun. Sally pointed to the starting point and verbally cued Bill when to begin and when to stop once one minute had passed according to the stopwatch.

Reread passage.

During the reread passage, the student participant was asked to reread the passage he had read during the modeled passage. Bill was guided to the precise point of his last reading and told to read as many words as he could in one minute. Finally, the student was advised when to start and stop at the beginning and end of one minute according to the stopwatch.

During one continuous intervention session, the conditions of independent, modeled, and reread passage where implemented 5 times each, which amounted to a total of 15 trials. Data for all 15 trials were

analyzed.

Scoring.

Data taken from the reading fluency observation trials were analyzed one week after collection. Fluency scoring was calculated by the instructor. Sally gathered the copy of the book used during observation, the digital voice recording, an Android Clock Stopwatch Timer, and a pencil to rate the reading information. First, the instructor listened to the recording and marked the beginning and end of each one minute section directly onto the copy of the book. Then, using the operational definition, words were counted for each one minute session and written to the side of each one minute passage. Next, words read incorrectly were crossed out according to the definition of error specified in the operational definition. Incorrect words were counted and then subtracted from the total number of words per passage, providing a final number of words read correctly for each session.

All data were converted into rate and percentage of words read correctly. Rate, or words read correctly per minute, was calculated by dividing the number of words read correctly per trial by one minute. All reading sessions were found to have duration of exactly one-minute except for the second modeled reading session, which lasted only 59 seconds. For this session, time was converted to a percent of one minute, so 59 seconds was divided by 60 seconds. Percentage of words read correctly was determined by dividing the number of words read correctly in each trial by the total number of words in each trial then multiplying by 100. Lastly, the rate and percentages were entered and graphed on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.

Design.

Data across conditions with independent, modeled, and reread passages were displayed using an alternating treatments design (Alberto & Troutman, 2009). Alberto and Troutman confirm that alternating treatments design is the best way to compare effectiveness of several treatments with only one dependent variable. Therefore, the alternating treatments design was an appropriate choice for determining the effectiveness of guided oral reading in this study.

Interrater Agreement.

Interrater agreement was calculated using the first 3 reading trials (one independent, one modeled, and one reread passage). Comparison of the 3 trials amounted to 20% of the data samples. Agreement was checked by an independent person with no prior knowledge of research. The rater was given a pencil, an Android Clock Stopwatch Timer, the digital voice recording, an unmarked copy of chapters 1 -3 from The Awesome Aquarium Mystery, and the operational definition of a word read correctly. Subsequently, the rater listened to the recorded readings to determine where each session began and ended in the one minute allotted time period. Next, the rater counted and recorded the total amount of words in each session. The rater then listened to the sample again and marked out words read incorrectly according to terms stated in the operational definition. Finally, the rater subtracted the number of words in each section by the number of words read incorrectly in each section, which equaled the rater’s total number of words read correctly for the condition of independent, modeled, and reread passage.

Alberto and Troutman (2009) state that interrater agreement or reliability can be found by “dividing the smaller number of recorded instances by the larger number of recorded instances” (p. 89). Therefore, the interrater agreement was calculated by comparing the instructor’s number of words read correctly and the rater’s number of words read correctly. The larger was divided into the smaller sum of words read correctly for each of the 3 samples then multiplied by 100 to result in an interrater agreement percentage. Overall, interrater agreement was found to be 96%, resulting in a high degree of reliability for fluency data collected.

Results

As visually demonstrated in Figure 1, the participant had the most words read correctly per minute during the reread phase with an average of 117 words read per minute. The next most effective treatment was the modeled strategy with an average of 103 words read correctly per minute, leaving independent passage as the least effective treatment averaging only 82 words read correctly per minute. Furthermore, Figure 1 displays complete fractionation which reveals the treatments to be differentially effective (Alberto & Troutman, 2009).

As visually displayed in Figure 2, the modeled phase was the most effective strategy in terms of reading accuracy as the child averaged 94% of all words read correctly. Subsequently, the reread stage had the second greatest percentage at 93% of all words read correctly. Finally, the independent passage had the lowest percent correct, as Bill averaged only 90% of all words read correctly. The impact of these data is linked to Dudley’s (2005) recommendation that students should be able to read at least 96% of the words correctly from material that is to be used to assess fluency.

Discussion

All the findings in this examination of guided repeated oral reading are consistent with current literature from Dawson et al. (2000), Dudley (2005), Kamhi (2003), The National Reading Panel (2000), and Rose (1984). When children are provided an instructor model of reading, reading fluency generally improves in comparison to independent reading. Furthermore, oral rereads of the same passage the instructor and student previously read results in an increase in fluency when compared to independent passage and the first student reread after the teacher modeled. Limitations to this research do exist. Dudley reported that texts read with less than 96% words read correctly are deemed too difficult for reading fluency practice. Bill did not reach the 96% accuracy when reading, as his overall percentage of words read correctly was only 92%. So, Bill did improve fluency with the given treatment, but a more careful predetermination of the participant’s specific reading level should be taken into consideration for future fluency training. Furthermore, one data point in the research varied from the rest of the information gathered. This deviation of the third point of independent reading condition was likely caused when Bill lost his place in the passage and read the same sentence twice. The instructor gave 3 seconds to let the participant attempt to correct the error, but eventually needed Sally’s redirection. The fluency rhythm was broken and the repetition had a negative effect on words read correctly. However, all other independent passage data points plot below modeled and reread points, giving the opportunity to predict that words read correctly during independent passage would still remain less than the modeled and reread condition.

In conclusion, this study reiterates that effective reading fluency and comprehension practices do exist. Guided repeated oral reading is a particularly valuable and effective strategy to increase children’s fluency. Certain indirect tactics, such as poetry recitation and theater performances, are suggested to naturally induce repeated reading and unknowingly increase fluency proficiency (Rasinski, 2000). However, direct guided repeated oral reading still remains a powerful tool for enhancing fluency (National Reading Panel, 2000) and there are techniques to increase its effectiveness. Most importantly, guided repeated oral reading has provided the highest fluency achievements when modeled by a teacher or older peer who can provide feedback and correction (Dawson et al., 2000; Kamhi, 2003; Rose, 1984). Additionally, an interesting, relevant text at the current reading level of the student can enhance overall comprehension and fluency (Dudley, 2005; Kamhi, 2003; Rasinski, 2000).

Are future opportunities of a struggling reader already set in stone? No, there are many ways to increase fluency as confirmed by the National Reading Panel (2000), this study, and other peer reviewed literature. Children with low reading fluency rates and poor comprehension skills still have a chance at a bright future since practitioners can provide services that have been shown to improve certain skills within readers. Teachers must devise a system to identify current reading research findings to support the fluency strategies used in the classroom. All teachers and school staff should be well versed in evidence-based practices so successful reading fluency treatments can be integrated into daily school

routines. Finally, more research is needed to discover new and successful interventions to enhance reading abilities in addition to guided repeated oral reading.

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References

Alberto, P., & Troutman, A.C. (2009). Applied behavior analysis for teachers (8thed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:    Merrill.

Dawson, L., Venn, M.L., & Gunter, P.L. (2000).The effects of teacher versus computer reading models. Behavioral Disorders, 25, 105-113.

Dudley, A.M. (2005). Rethinking reading fluency for struggling adolescent readers. Beyond Behavior,    14(3),    16-22.

Fuchs, L.S., Fuchs, D., Hosp, M.K., & Jenkins, J.R. (2001). Oral reading fluency as an indicator of reading competence: a theoretical, empirical, and historical analysis. Scientific Studies Of Reading,    5,    239-256.

Hoing, B., Diamond, L., &Gutlohn, L. (2000). Teaching reading sourcebook for kindergarten through eighth grade (2nded.). Emeryville,    CA:    CORE.

Kamhi, A. (2003). The role of the SLP in improving reading fluency.    ASHA    Leader,    8(7),    6-8.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Teaching children to read: an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications

for reading instruction. Retrieved from

http: / / www.nichd.nih.gov / publications / nrp/ upload / smallbook_pdf.pdf Rasinski, T.V.    (2000). Speed does matter in reading.

Reading    Teacher,    54,    146-151.

Rose, T. (1984).The effects of two prepractice procedures on oral reading. Journal of Learning Disabilities,    17,    544-548.

125

Effects of Collaboration on

Academic Performance: Cognitive Load Theory as an Integral Component of Group Learning

by Rachel L. Bradley

Collaborative learning is an educational technique that utilizes the combined effort of individuals of mixed-ability to accomplish a task (Slavin, 2012). Methods of collaborative learning have become increasingly popular in recent years, particularly in school settings because of the benefits associated with this instructional design. Collaborative learning provides an environment that is more conducive to students’ active learning and that allows for more personal feedback of ideas than more traditional methods of teaching. Collaborative learning approaches also promote interpersonal development as students learn to relate to and respect differences between peers. However, the circumstances under which collaborative learning is academically beneficial are not universal.

Not all research has found evidence for the effectiveness of collaborative learning. The experiments of Beier and Crook (2010) showed no significant difference in immediate performance between individual learners and those that learned in dyads. However, those that learned individually performed better on the follow-up test conducted one week after training suggesting that dyadic training was not as effective for longterm retention of information as learning individually. Beier and Crook (2010) also examined various types of dyad training in comparison with individual training and again found that individuals outperformed dyad groups. Furthermore, it was found that there were no significant differences between dyad types for either immediate or follow-up performance. Beier and Crook (2010) discussed the implications of their study arguing that the nature of the task presented did not allow for effective collaborative learning to take place. They indicated that dyad training is not as effective for tasks that require constant attention claiming that training with a partner detracted from the attention necessary to successfully complete the task.

Additional research further supports the findings of Beier and Crook

(2010), suggesting that the extent to which collaborative learning is effective depends on both the complexity and the type of information that is to be learned (e.g., Kirschner, Kirschner, &Paas, 2009; Kirschner, Kirschner, &Paas, 2011). These particular variables may be especially influential to collaborative learning because of the role that cognitive load theory plays in collaborative learning processes. Cognitive load theory poses that working memory is limited in the sense that humans can only process a finite amount of novel information simultaneously before cognitive processes are overloaded and no further learning can occur. Utilizing their knowledge of such limitations, Sweller and van Merrienboen (2005) reviewed various developments in cognitive load theory in order to generate a more comprehensive understanding of the interactions of these concepts. Their studies revealed the importance of the initial minimization of intrinsic cognitive load (the cognitive load that is imposed by the inherent level of difficulty of the instructional materials) through the limiting of the number of elements presented to the learner so that more attention can be devoted to the acquisition of new information. Once information is initially acquired, the learner is more capable of a gradual transition to progressively more complex knowledge. Sweller and van Merrienboen (2005) also discussed how motivation is a key element in reducing intrinsic cognitive load. That is, when effort is invested in activities that generate germane cognitive load (the load initiated through the devotion of cognitive resources to processing, constructing, and automating of schemas), schemata development is more likely to occur. By categorizing novel information into schemas the learner can more deeply process the information, making the difficulty level of the material easier, and thereby lessening the intrinsic cognitive load. Finally,

Sweller and van Merrienboen (2005) assessed the benefits of adaptive learning and discovered that instruction that was adaptive to the learner’s performance resulted in higher scores than when fixed tasks were used as means of assessment.

Paas and Sweller (2012) supplemented the work done by Sweller and van Merrienboen (2005) in their research of cognitive load theory as an element of evolutionary psychology. Paas and Sweller (2012) developed the Collective Working-Memory Effect in which the capacity of working memory may be extended from the typical seven elements. By using the collective working memory effect, individuals are able to pool their working memories thus increasing the overall capacity available for information processing and reducing individual cognitive load. Paas and Sweller further advocate the usefulness of collaborative learning by emphasizing the critical role of communication in lessening cognitive load. Since communication is a biologically primary process and comes naturally to humans, it can be used effortlessly to aid in acquiring biologically secondary knowledge, that is, knowledge that humans must obtain through effort. In this sense, collaborative learning is dually beneficial in lessening cognitive load both through the expansion of working memory capacity and through the use of primary knowledge as a facilitator of the acquisition of secondary knowledge.

Kirschner et al. (2009) analyzed previous research on cognitive load theory to investigate the extent to which the theory affects successful collaborative and individual learning. They found that determining the intrinsic cognitive load imposed on the learner is crucial in determining what type of instructional method to use. The researchers argued that collaborative learning can only be effective and efficient if the task presented to the learner is too difficult for individual learning. Kirschner et al. (2009) also examined collaborative learning from an information processing perspective. They discussed that learning becomes more efficient as processing capacity increases across group members because such an increase allows for cooperation of individuals in a way that effectively reduces cognitive load.

Another example of how collaborative learning is influenced by task difficulty is evident in the experiments done by Kirschner et al. (2011). They discovered that group members learned more efficiently than individual learners for tasks of high complexity. That is, people that learned in groups expended less mental effort on the task than did individual learners. However, there was no significant difference for learning efficiency between the groups for low-complexity tasks. In the testing efficiency study, it was found that individual learners scored higher than group learners for low-complexity tasks, but that group learners scored higher than individual learners for high-complexity tasks. Based on their findings, the researchers proposed that effective collaborative learning is dependent on the extent to which dividing information across group members is advantageous.

This study was an examination of the work done by Kirschner et al. (2009, 2011). In accordance with their findings, it was hypothesized that participants learning in groups would score higher than individual learners for tasks of high complexity. Additionally, it was hypothesized that participants who learn individually would display an advantage over groups for low complexity recall tasks because of the unnecessary cognitive load imposed on group members to communicate information that is easily understood.

Method Participants

The participants were 27 students of an Educational Psychology class at Valdosta State University; 23 females and four males made up the group of participants (M_age = 21.15, age range: 20-41 years). Of these 27 people, 17 were Caucasian, seven were African-American, one was Asian, one was Hispanic, and one was of mixed ethnicity. Additionally, 16 participants were Speech and Language Pathology majors, nine were Psychology majors, one was an Early Childhood Education major, and one participant listed their major as “Other”.

Materials

Participants were first supplied with an informed consent form and a demographics sheet (see Appendices A and B). After completion of these forms, participants were presented with a case study about classroom management and behaviorism (Gonzalez-DeHass & Willems, 2006) and an assessment created by the instructor of the class and the experimenter (see Appendices C and D). The assessment contained both low-complexity and high-complexity questions pertaining to the case study. For this study, the low-complexity questions required participants to recall information directly from the case study whereas the high-com-plexity questions required participants to understand and apply the concepts presented to them from the day’s lesson to the context of the case study. This particular case study was selected for the experiment because it was relevant to the information the class had learned immediately prior to the experiment, thus ensuring consistency in background knowledge across participants.

Procedure

Educational Psychology students at Valdosta State University were asked to participate in an undergraduate study about the effectiveness of collaborative group learning. Those who chose to participate provided their informed written consent while those who declined were thanked politely. Students who declined to participate sat quietly in the room while the learning tasks were being performed; they were exempt from the study as well as from the extra credit (one bonus point added to a test score for participation in the study). Participants were broken up into one of two conditions by random assignment. Each packet given to the participants had either a red star sticker or a blue star sticker on it. Participants with a blue star sticker were in the collaborative learning condition while participants with a red star sticker were in the individual learning condition. The conditions included four collaborative learning communities with three participants in three of the communities and one community of four participants (for a total of 13 participants) and 14 individual groups in which participants performed the given tasks independently. Participants were then asked to complete a demographics form indicating their age, gender, ethnicity, and major. Afterward, each participant was provided with a case study and a questionnaire. Those in the collaborative learning condition were allowed to read the case study and complete the questionnaire as a group and were encouraged to fully discuss the various topics relevant to each of the questions, emphasizing in their discussion the material presented in the lesson prior to the experiment. Participants in the individual learning condition were instructed to read the case study and answer the corresponding questionnaire alone. Participants in both learning conditions were allowed to reference the case study to aid in completion of the questionnaire. The students in either learning condition, however, were not permitted to ask for help from the teacher, nor were they allowed to reference their class notes. The participants were allotted 20 minutes to read the case study and complete the questionnaire. Participants were assessed individually regardless of the condition to which they were assigned based on the accuracy of their responses to the questionnaire. Their performance on the questionnaire did not affect their class grade(s) in any way.

Results

A 2 x 2 (Learning condition by Task complexity) repeated measures Analysis ofVariance was performed to see if the difficulty of a task would significantly change the performance scores of participants depending on their grouping. There was a significant main effect for task complexity,

F(1, 25) = 63.05, p< .001, Hnp2 A2= .70. Across both learning conditions, participants answered more questions correctly for the low-com-plexity task than for the high-complexity task. However, there was no significant main effect for learning condition, F(1, 25) = 0.20, p = .66,

Hnp2 A2 = .01. Participants learning in groups did not score any differently than participants learning individually. There was no significant interaction between learning condition and task complexity F(1, 25) = 1.93, p = .18, Hnp2 A2 = .21 (see Figure 1). For the low-complexity tasks, there was no difference between the individual learning condition (M = 1.00, SD = 0.00) and the collaborative learning condition (M =

0.92, SD = 0.16). For high-complexity tasks, there also was no significant difference between the individual learning condition (M = 0.59, SD =

0.21) and the collaborative learning condition (M = 0.63,SD = 0.13; see Table 1).

Discussion

The results of the study did not lend support to the hypothesis that collaborative group learning is a more effective instructional method for difficult tasks, nor was the hypothesis that participants learning individually perform better on low complexity recall tasks supported. These findings suggest that collaborative learning does not relieve the cognitive load imposed by learning novel information and that collaborative learning methods are just as effective as traditional learning styles that focus on individual acquisition of knowledge. Furthermore, it was found that learning in groups had no effect on responses for low complexity questions; students learning in groups answered low complexity recall questions with similar accuracy as students who learned individually. This suggests that the communication of easily understood information has no effect on cognitive load. These results are inconsistent with prior research which indicates that as task complexity increases learning individually becomes less effective than learning in groups (Kirschner et al., 2009; Kirschner et al., 2011; Paas&Sweller, 2012; Sweller & van Merrienboer, 2005).

One reason that may account for the differences in results between this study and results of previous research is the structural variation of the task presented to participants. Whereas I defined levels of complexity according to their rank on Bloom’s Taxonomy scale, Kirschner et al.

(2011) used the number of interacting elements to classify whether a learning task was of low or high complexity: Low-complexity tasks had fewer interacting elements, and high-complexity tasks had more interacting elements. Additionally, because I created the questions for the study, and since it was the first time the scale was presented to participants, there was no established validity or reliability of the measure; there was a ceiling effect for the low-complexity questions presented. This effect may have influenced the results of my experiment. Future researchers may want to alter this questionnaire to obtain validity and reliability or can employ the use of a different case study and develop low complexity recall and high complexity comprehension questions in order to fit that particular case study. These operational differences between this experiment and previous research studies are noteworthy and may be the reasons why the obtained results were not similar to previous results.

Larger implications for the study include the time spent developing teaching techniques and the money expended implementing them. It would be in the best interest of school systems to review collaborative learning research carefully and adapt lesson plans and teaching methods accordingly to be most efficient for their students. Further research should be conducted to determine the most effective learning environments (collaborative learning versus individual learning) based on various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Furthermore, research investigating the effects of collaborative learning on various age groups and across classroom subjects would contribute greatly to this area of study. While collaborative learning had no effect on college students studying educational psychology, it may (or may not) impact elementary school children studying grammar.

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References

Beier, M.E. & Crook, A. E. (2010). When training with a partner is inferior to training alone: The importance of dyad type and interaction quality. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 16(4),    335-348.    doi:    10.1037/a0021913

Gonzalez-DeHass, A. &Willems, P. P. (2006). Educational psychology casebook.    San    Francisco:    Pearson.

Kirschner, F., Kirschner, P. A., &Paas, F. (2009). A cognitive load approach to collaborative learning: United brains for complex tasks. Educational Psychology    Review,    21(1),    31-42.doi:

10. 1007 / s10648-008-9095-2 Kirschner, F., Kirschner, P.A., &Paas, F. (2011). Task complexity as a driver for collaborative learning efficiency: The collective working memory effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(4), 615-624.doi: 10.1002/acp.1730 Paas, F. &Sweller, J. (2012). An evolutionary upgrade of cognitive load theory: Using the human motor system and collaboration to support the learning of complex cognitive tasks. Educational Psychology Review, 24(1), 27-45.doi: 10.1007/s10648-011-9179-2 Slavin, R. E. (2012). Student-centered and constructivist approaches to instruction. In P. A. Smith & S. Steed (Eds.), Educational psychology: Theory and practice (pp. 217-247). Boston, MA: Pearson    Education,    Inc.

Sweller, J., & van Merrienboer, J. J. G. (2005). Cognitive load theory and complex learning: Recent developments and future directions. Educational Psychology    Review,    17(2),    147-177.doi:

10.1007/s10648-005-3951-0

ProportionofResponse Accuracy in Individual and Collaborative LearningOroups

Table 1

|  | Individual | Group
Level of difficulty | n | M SD | n M SD
Low (Recall) | 14 | 1.00 .00 | 13 .92 .16
High (C ompr ehension) | 14 | .59 .2113.63.13 |

Figure 1

Learning condition and task complexity ^    by response accuracy

O

C 1.2 i

Figure 1. Mean proportional values representing accuracy for question type. No differences in accuracy were found for learning condition. Participants answered more low complexity recall questions correctly than they answered high complexity comprehension questions. Lines represent type of learning community.

Appendix A Informed Consent: Collaborative Learning

Note: If you are not currently enrolled in Dr. Kelley’s PSYC 3110 class please inform the experimenter before completion of this form.

You (print your name:)_, agree to participate

in the study under the direction of Rachel Bradley to be conducted through Valdosta State University.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of collaborative learning. In order for this topic to be examined, you will be asked to read a case study about types of instruction and effective teaching and answer a series of questions about the case study.

There are no known risks involved in your participation in this study. If you need to talk to someone about your experiences at Valdosta State University, you may call the Counseling Center at 229-333-5940. Every effort will be made to keep your data confidential. Your responses are not identified by your name, so do not put your name on any of the materials. You may talk individually with the experimenter about the experiment if you desire. You can withdraw your consent and discontinue participation at any time without receiving any negative consequences.

If you desire further information about this matter, you should contact Rachel Bradley at 478-538-0112. This study has been exempted from Institutional Review Board (IRB) review in accordance with Federal regulations. The IRB, a university committee established by federal law, is responsible for protecting the rights and welfare of research participants. If you have concerns or questions about your rights as a research participant, you may contact the IRB Administrator at 229-333-7837 or irb@valdosta.edu

The research project and my role in it have been explained to me, and my questions have been answered to my satisfaction. I agree to participate in this study. By signing this form, I am indicating that I am 18 years of age or older. A copy of this consent form has been made available to me.

Participant’s signature_

Date_

I have explained and defined in detail the research procedure in which the participant has agreed to participate, and have made a copy of this informed consent form available for his or her records.

Experimenter’s signature_

Date_

Appendix B Demographic Form

Note: f you are not currently enrolled in Dr. Kelley’s PSYC 3110 class please inform the experimenter before completion of this form.

IF YOU AGREE TO PARTICIPATE, PLEASE COMPLETE THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION

¹. Age: -

2.Sex: Male    Female

3.    Race: (Please circle only one)

Caucasian    African American    Hispanic/Latino Asian

Multiracial    Other

4.    Major: (Please circle only one)

Psychology Speech and Language Pathology Early Childhood Education    Other

Appendix C Case Study: The Rule Breaker

Ms. Atista’s second-grade class is sitting on the carpet at the back of the room in a semicircle while Ms. Atista sits on a stool next to a large bulletin board. For the first ten minutes of every day, the class discusses the class rules. It is the beginning of the school year and Ms. Atista wants to ensure that all the students know the rules as well as the consequences for breaking rules. On the first day of school and in addition to the rules she has created for the class, Ms. Atista allows the students to produce some of their own and, as a class, they decide which ones they should add. Today the class is reviewing the rules and coming up with examples of how each rule can be broken.

They have gone through rules one and two when a student raises his hand. “Do you have a question, Edwin?” Ms. Atista asks. The student whose hand was raised nods his head. “Good job on raising your hand. You have just demonstrated how not to break rule number two, which is not to speak while another is speaking but to raise your hand until I call on you. Very good, Edwin! Now, go ahead with your question, please,” Ms. Atista says. “So, if I ran when I got up to get in line, I would be in trouble because of rule number three?” asks Edwin. “You would not be in trouble, Edwin, but you would have broken rule number three. Can anyone tell me what this rule is?” asks Ms. Atista, pointing to rule number three on the large board titled CLASS RULES in bold red letters. “It is not to run in the classroom!” Harrison shouts excitedly. “Well, I must be imagining things because I thought I heard an answer but I have not called on anyone yet!” Ms. Atista says. Harrison immediately raises his hand and Ms. Atista motions for him to answer the question.

“Now, class, can we think of why rule number four is important?” Ms. Atista asks. Erin raises her hand and Ms. Atista motions for her to speak. “Because we should not be touching other people, because they might not like the people to touch them and so we don’t touch them.” “Very good, Erin. I can see you were paying attention when we discussed our rules, because it is very important to respect others without their permission. Just like we do not take things from others without their permission, which is our next rule, rule number five,” Ms. Atista answers. Before the discussion can continue, Ms. Atista walks over to the side of the room where there is an area marked “TIME-OUT,” and where Ben had been sitting, and motions for Ben to join the rest of the class. Ben immediately tells Ms. Atista that he knew all the answers to the questions she asked the class and then he accuses her of purposely not calling on him even though his hand was raised. Ms. Atista explains to Ben that while in time-out students are not allowed to participate in what the class is doing nor are they allowed to receive any treats or rewards. She then asks Ben, “Did you learn anything from being in time-out?” Ben shakes his head and loudly says, “NO!” “Well, that is a shame, Ben,” answers Ms. Atista and she continues, “because you are not using your indoor voice and because you tell me you did not learn how to control yourself better in time-out, you may very well be there again and miss out on all the things that the rest of the class has been doing and learning. Now, go sit down on the carpet and join your classmates.” The class continues to go over the rules before beginning their spelling lesson.

Later that day, the class is cleaning up so that they may line up or go to recess. Ms. Atista reminds the class that the students who will get to go first to recess will be the ones who have put all their materials away and are sitting in their seats. While the students are putting away their materials, Ms. Atista notices that Erin and Clarice are pushing each other to try to fit their supplies on the same shelf. Ms. Atista says, “Now remember, class, there is a place for all of the supplies, so there is no need to try to push some other student out of your way in order to get your supplies on a shelf — Erin, Clarice.” Both girls glance over at their teacher and find other places for their supplies before returning to their seats.

Soon, Ms. Atista calls the green table and all of the students happily get up and begin to form the line by the door to the playground. “All right, now the blue table may get up and go get in line. Please remember to walk, children, not run, or you will be sitting back down”, Ms. Atista warns. All the students belonging to the blue table follow the teacher’s instructions except Ben, who runs to get in line and knocks Stacey down. “Ben, please come here. The rest of the tables, please line up, and then, line leader, please take the line out to recess.” The line leader, Javier, smiles at Ms. Atista and begins to walk out of the class with the rest of his classmates following behind. “Now, Ben, you deliberately disobeyed me when I said to walk to get in line. This is the fourth time today that you have broken one of the class rules. I am sending a note home to your parents about your behavior. If you misbehave again today, you will not be going to recess at all tomorrow. Now, go and sit in time-out until I call you,” Ms. Atista says sternly.

Later that day, the class is working on their reading lessons. The class is divided into three reading groups that differ in ability. While Ms. Atista is working with one group, her aide, Kona, is working with another group and the third group is working independently. Ms. Atista’s group is taking turns reading aloud. While Harrison is reading, Ms. Atista notices that a problem is beginning in the group that is working with Kona. In order to prevent the situation from escalating, Ms. Atista asks Harrison to continue reading and instructs the rest of the group to follow in the order they have been reading until she returns. “What is going on?” Ms. Atista asks Kona. “Well, Ms. Atista, Ben just marked all over Edwin’s paper and when I explained to him that he should apologize, Ben took the paper and ripped it in half,” explains Kona holding up Edwin’s torn paper. Edwin is visibly upset and explains to Ms. Atista that Ben tore his summary of the story they have been reading. “Ben, what do you have to say?” Ms. Atista asks. “I was just trying to see it, and he did not let me, it isn’t my fault, he just wanted to get me in trouble,” Ben replies angrily. “Why did you need his summary?” Ms. Atista asks, giving Ben a chance to explain, while she looks at the reading group that she was working with and nods for them to go on reading and quickly glances at the group that is independently working. “’ Cause,” replies Ben. “Because of. ?” Ms. Atista asks. “You did not need to be looking at anyone else’s summary; you needed to be creating your own, which I see you have not done,

Ben,” Ms. Atista says, holding Ben’s paper, then continues, “I told you earlier that you would be losing recess tomorrow if you misbehave again, so tomorrow you will not be going out for recess. Now, please get back to work.” Ms. Atista returns to the reading group that she had been working with.

At the end of the day, Kona and Ms. Atista talk while they put supplies away. “Wow, Ms. Atista, you are really good, I mean you always know what is happening in the room and sometimes it doesn’t even look like you could have seen it. Like when Ben messed up Edwin’s story,” Kona exclaims. “Thanks for the compliment. I guess I do stay on top of what is going on. I just believe you can make a difference in all of your students’ lives — it is just that with some it is more difficult than with others.” Both ladies look at each other and say, “Ben!” in unison. “Well, he is difficult, but so far I have noticed he has his good days and he has his bad days, I am hoping that a letter home to his folks may help with his behavior. Otherwise, I will have to call his parents in for a conference.” Ms. Atista says.

Appendix D The Rule Breaker Questionnaire

Please answer the following questions pertaining to the case study. You will be scored individually, however participants working in collaborative groups are encouraged to fully discuss EVERY question. There is only one correct answer per question.

1.    Based on the way Ms. Atista handles Ben’s behavior, Ben is most likely misbehaving in order to

a.    Receive the teacher’s attention

b.    Receive attention from his peers

c.    Avoid activities he finds unpleasant

d.    To be eligible for class clown

ANSWER: B

HIGH LEVEL: Comprehension

2.    What does Ms. Atista do for the first ten minutes of every day with the students?

a.    Ms. Atista discusses the class rules

b.    Ms. Atista shows students a video

c.    Ms. Atista collects homework

d.    Ms. Atista answers questions about the reading assignment

ANSWER: A LOW LEVEL: Recall

3.    How does Ms. Atista demonstrate overlapping?

a.    She lets the students help in creating some of the class rules

b.    She punishes Ben while still teaching the rest of her class

c.    She lets the students work in groups while she comes to help them with more difficult problems

d. She requires the class to clean up before they go out to recess ANSWER: B

HIGH LEVEL: Comprehension

4.    What type of instruction style does Ms. Atista primarily use in her classroom? How can you tell?

a. Student centered instruction; the students are actively involved

b. Student centered instruction; the students do not contribute to the lesson

c.    Teacher centered instruction; the students are passively receiving information

d.    Teacher centered instruction; the teacher and the students are evaluating learning together

ANSWER: A

HIGH LEVEL: Comprehension

5.    Ms. Atista utilizes “time-out” as a punishment for which student?

a.    Erin

b.    Clarice

c.    Ben

d.    Edwin

ANSWER: C HIGH LEVEL: Recall

6.    At what point in Ms. Atista’s classroom is engaged time lost?

a.    When the class is working on their reading assignment

b.    When students are cleaning up to go to recess

c.    When Ms. Atista is explaining the reading lesson

d.    When students are reading a book

ANSWER: B

LOW LEVEL: Comprehension

7.    How many reading groups does Ms. Atista create for the class?

ANSWER:A LOW LEVEL: Recall

8.    According to Ms. Atista, what is rule number 3?

a.    Raise your hand to speak

b.    Do not run

c.    Be on time

d.    Do not take things from others without their permission

ANSWER: B LOW LEVEL: Recall

146

Copper Complexes as a Delivery Agent for Medicinal Agents

by Melody Sobhani, John Milam, Lakesha Butler, David Jenkins, Iris Rivera, Satilla Johns, Rebekah Graham, Haley Franklin, and Dustin Jenkins

Background

In order to provide worldwide guidance, promote health, and control communicable diseases, the World Health Organization was founded in 1945 at the United Nations Conference in San Francisco. In 1947, an epidemiological service was implemented to track diseases internationally. The World Health Organization (WHO) was established on April 7, 1948 with the primary concern being to control the spread of malaria, tuberculosis (TB), and sexually transmitted diseases. Other purposes include monitoring health situations and trends, providing leadership on health matters, and shaping research initiatives.

In the early 1920s, the Bacille Calmette-Guerin vaccine was issued for a mass tuberculosis immunization to prevent children from contracting the disease. Throughout the remainder of the decade, important programs such as the Global Yaws Program were launched. In partnership with United States International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), the Global Yaws Program treated three hundred million people in fifty countries, reducing targeted disease levels by more than ninety five percent. In 1976, WHO adopted resolutions to incorporate rehabilitation into primary health care programs. In 1977, the first essential medicine list was published which consisted of treatments for diseases such as malaria and TB; as well as long-lasting diseases including diabetes and cancer. Since then, many more resolutions and programs have been launched in response to global health concerns. Several important endeavors, apart from the organization’s mission, included proposing a resolution for preventing leprosy, ending discrimination against patients with AIDS, and implementing the Directly Obsereved Therapy (DOT) strategy for tuberculosis control. Further branches such as the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network were developed to detect and treat the advancement of diseases. The Commission on Macroeconomics and Health were developed to aid in determining how health affect’s development. WHO aims to progress and develop in order to maintain the capacity to treat modern global health threats of the world from social and physical perspectives.

WHO compiled a primary golden achievement list to make the essential medicines for the most common diseases in society available. The goal was to make sure that an abundance of medicines on this list are always obtainable in the appropriate dosages. The drugs on the list were expected to satisfy the health needs of a population. These lists were established by National and/or state (province) health officials in different areas of the world.

There are two lists of essential medicines, one for adults and the other for children. The major differences between the lists are not only between the drugs, but also between the restrictions and circumstances relating to drug usage. Drugs that appear on these lists routinely undergo careful review in order to maintain current practices. There are several steps that pharmaceutical agents go through before they are considered more effective and efficient. These tests include, but are not limited to: cell lines, animal testing, and clinical trials. In cell line testing, a cell line or colony of animal, human, tumorous, or diseased cells are injected with the medication to be tested. With the high volume of therapeutic natural products and synthetically engineered products being produced, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) 60 cell line¹ panel was created. This panel efficiently tests the effectiveness of these drugs on a wide spectrum of cancer cell cultures, also known as lines. These lines represent melanoma, leukemia, along with cancers of the lung, breast, colon, brain, ovary, prostate, and kidney. The initial process is done in vitro,² in which all the cells are inoculated at a single dose of 10 M. Cells that exhibit significant growth inhibition are then evaluated at five concentration levels. The cell line results determine a GI50 concentration. GI50 is the concentration of the drug that inhibits growth of cancer cells by 50%. The results from this panel allow researchers to prioritize which drugs should continue for evaluation. Further evaluation is done in vivo with mice as the models. The NCI-60 cell line panel tests approximately 3,000 drugs annually, out of approximately 15,000 applicants.

After the cell line test, if the drug proves to be effective, and inhibits the disease or tumors, then it is promoted to the next level: animal testing. When a drug is submitted to animal testing or the preclinical phase, it is considered an “Investigational New Drug” (IND). The preclinical ph ase is used to evaluate how the drug might work and impact humans. Using this preliminary data research institutions and sponsors are responsible for convincing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)³ that the product is safe for humans in clinical trials. If the FDA deems the IND as safe for human utilization, then it goes into a series of four clinical trials.

Clinical trial phase zero can be seen as a proposal. In this step, a schedule for testing is proposed as well as participate types, the period in which the testing will be conducted, medications and dosages to be tested, and the overall objective of the study. Phase 1 usually consists of a small group of approximately twenty-five people. This phase is used to determine the safety aspects of the drug. It examines how the drug interacts with the body, specifically its absorption rate and how it will exit the body. Another focus of this phase is the effectiveness of the drug. If it proves to be nontoxic and un-harmful to the participants, then it will go into a Phase 2 trial. Phase 2 consists of a much larger group often consisting of hundreds of participants. This phase is carried out to inspect the effectiveness of the drug; participants with certain diseases are scrutinized and examined for results. Two groups of participants are used; those who are being treated with the IND and those “treated” with a placebo. The participants are observed for a short period of time to keep record of side effects and overall safety. If this step is successful, Phase 3 is launched. Phase 3 is the final step of the clinical trials that determines if the product will be marketed or not. In this phase, as many as three thousand participants partake in the study. This phase reaches out to different populations to see how effective the drug will be on people in different regions. It continues to focus on safety and effectiveness but on a much larger and broader scale. Varying dosages are given to the participants as well as different medications to monitor how the drug will react with the participant. If all phases of the clinical trials demonstrate to be promising, sponsors and the FDA meet to discuss further information about the drug. If the FDA considers approving the product, then the sponsor will write a formal paper known as a “New Drug Application.”⁴ This application describes how the drug works, is manufactured, and includes all analytical information from preclinical and clinical trials. After 60 days, the FDA will make a decision on whether or not to market the drug.⁵

Many drugs, approved or not approved, may have trouble penetrating tissues and cells due to solubility, pH levels, toxicity, and many other reasons. For these drugs, instruments known as drug carriers are employed. A drug carrier is a system that serves to make a drug more controlled, effective, target specific, and less toxic. For drug carriers to assist drugs in efficacy they must be non-toxic, biodegradable, undetectable by the immune system, and compatible with the body. The drug carrier catalog consists of many different carriers that are utilized for different target areas, such as micelles, liposomes, nanoparticles, dendrimers, microspheres, and polymers. These drug carriers assist nonpolar or hydrophobic drugs to their desire site.

Micelles are molecules composed of polar or hydrophilic phosphate heads and nonpolar or hydrophobic hydrocarbin tails. When in aqueous solutions micelles arrange so that the heads face the solvent in which they are placed in the nonpolar region of micelles because of the hydrophobic tail protects drugs from being degraded by acids in the stomach. They also allow for slower release, facilitating the drug to the targeted area before being released. Hydrophilic drugs are found on the outer surfaces of the micelles. Liposomes (composed of phospholipid bilayers) are among the most popular drug carriers used because of their size and many layers, ranging from micrometers to tens of micrometers. Drugs are entrapped in the inner hydrophilic section of the liposome. As the liposomes travel through the body, they disintegrate releasing the drug into the target area. Chemical compounds known as polymers contain two or more repeating segments. Polymers can be either natural or synthetic; a common natural polymer is polysialic acid (PSA) and a common synthetic polymer is polyethylene-glycol (PEG).⁶ When employed as drug carriers, they wrap themselves around the drug so that it can travel through the body without being eliminated. Once the drug has reached its location and is secured, the polymer begins to degrade slowly. Then the polymer leaves the drug in the targeted area where it can begin to kill diseased cells. Nanoparticles are a combination of drugs and polymers in organic solvents. When added to water the polymers reassemble, arranging the hydrophobic ends on the interior and the hydrophilic ends on the exterior. A protective shield containing ligands then surrounds the polymers. They are intravenously delivered through the body. The solution quickly flows through the blood stream to the holes in cell walls where the tumors lie. They then attach to tumorous cells, penetrate and kill them. Dendrimers are a series of tree like vesicles, which have hydrophobic centers and hydrophilic surfaces. Drugs are attached to dendrimers covalently as well as ionically, and lie encapsulated between branches. As the dendrimers degrade, the medication is released.

Microspheres are extremely small drug capsules comprised of polymers ranging from one to one thousand micrometers. These tiny capsules are also referred to as microparticles and are time specific or time releasing. Microspheres are the only drugs of their kind, being that they are radioactive polymers and can be directly applied to tumors through catheterization. They are a more recent delivery system and are seen as very effective since they give the maximum amount of therapy for the minimum amount of side effects to normal cells.

Our Work

Our group compiled a list of approximately one hundred known cancer drugs that contained an amino group. Medications travelling through the body lose efficacy before reaching their destination, and therefore a full dosage cannot be administered properly. Taxol is an example of a prominent cancer drug on our list. Taxol (Figure 1) was originally discovered by the U.S. National Cancer Institute Program in the 1960s, and was derived from the Pacific yew tree.⁷ It is used to treat many cancers including tongue and oral, ovarian, lung, neck, and breast cancers; however, Taxol’s mode of action (MOA) interferes with the microtubules.

Another example of a drug we modeled using computational methods is vinblastine. Vinblastine was originally derived from Madagascar periwinkle and is used to treat various types of cancer including: breast, head, neck, testicular, Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and Langerhans cell histiocytosis. It affects the tubulin in the body, which disrupts the assemblage of microtubules. Some studies suggest that this allows for a longer period of time in between chemotherapy treaments.

A well-known series called the Irving-Williams series demonstrates that the copper (II) ion has a higher affinity for amines (organic molecules with a nitrogen atom) when compared to other transition metal cations. The copper-amine complexes can be several orders of magnitude mroe stable than other complexes such as those with zinc, iron, nickel, cobalt, sodium, calcium or magnesium-all ions found in the body. This is important because the copper complexes should not be able to disassemble easily.

Our group also assembled a list of almost one-hundred and fifty other amine-containing drugs that are listed on the WHO list of essential medicines. This list contains HIV, antibiotic, anti-fungal and leprosy drugs, among many others. Some examples of the drugs we assumbled are Cerubidine, Niclosamide, Fluconazole, Quinine, and Docetaxel. Cerubidine, also known as Daunorubicin, is an anti-tumor antibiotic. It is formed from natural products that are produced by species of the soil fungus Streptomyces. Cerubidine is used worldwide and is known to treat acute myelogenous leukemia. Cerubidine acts during the beginning ph ases of the cell cycle to slow the growth and spread of the cancer cells in the body. Niclosamide is a substance that is known to effectively kill tapeworms and clear them out of the human body. Niclosamide is used in a number of countries and comes in a chewable tablet. It kills the tapeworms upon immediate contact. The drug kills the worms by uncoupling oxidative phosphorylation in the tapeworms. Clinical trials are also being conducted to test Niclosamide’s effect on colon cancer. Fluconazole, trade name Diflucan, is a triazole antifungal drug. Fluconazole functions by slowing the growth of the fungi. It is used to treat fungal infections in the blood and has an empirical formula of C13H12F2N6O. It can also be used to treat fungal infections in other areas of the body such as yeast infections that arise in the mouth, esophagus, throat, etc. Among other usages, it is also used as a prevention mechanism in patients receiving chemotherapy. Quinine is found naturally in the bark of the cinchona tree, but can also be synthesized in the laboratory. It has antimalarial effects, but is generally not the first drug choice due to the extremely painful side effects it can cause. It is primarily used in poverty-stricken countries and in extreme circumstances. Docetaxel is used in the treatment against multiple cancers, including but not limited to, breast cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, head and neck cancer, and prostate cancer. Before the administration of this drug, a corticosteroid pill is given in hope of reducing the fluid retention and allergic reactions. There is no pill form of Docetaxel and it is thus administered intravenously.

Antibiotics are antibacterial agents that treat infections caused by bacteria. Antibiotics kill bacteria by inhibiting bacterial growth and can have a number of mechanisms including disrupting the formation of cell walls, disrupting the function of DNA, and preventing proteins from functioning properly. There are over one hundred antibiotics on the market today; they are amongst the most frequently prescribed medications in modern medicine. One of the most well-known antibiotics is Penicillin or Penicillin G (Table 1). It was discovered in 1928, by a Scottish biologist named Alexander Fleming. He discovered penicillin by accident when he was cleaning his lab and noticed one of his experiments looked suspicious. There was mold in the petri dish with no bacteria surrounding it. Upon further research, he concluded that the mold contained lysozymes that would eliminate or at the very least repel the bacteria. Fleming found penicillin to be the first effective antibiotic drug against many serious bacteria such as staphylococci and streptococci.

Another antibiotic is Amikacin (Table 1), which works by binding to the 30S ribosomal subunit. It then inhibits protein synthesis to prevent the initiation complex of the messenger RNA. This misleads the mRNA allowing the incorrect amino acids to be inserted into the polypeptide, which causes the bacteria to be unable to synthesize proteins. Capre-omycin⁸ (Table 1) is an important drug used in the treatment of muldrug tidrug-resistant tuberculosis. This medication is combined with other drugs such as isoniazid, ethambutol, and pyrazinamide in order to prevent the growth of bacteria that cause TB. It is grouped with a class of drugs known as antibiotic. Capreomycin can be injected as a broad-spec-trum antibiotic used in the therapy of drug-resistant TB, as a second line agent.

Antibiotics are characterized by Minimum Inhibitory Concentrations or MIC values. MICs can play an important role in diagnostic laboratories to validate resistance of microorganisms to an antimicrobial agent, and also to observe any activity of new antimicrobial agents. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is a polyether compound with many uses from industrial manufacturing to medicine. Nanoparticles possessing PEG chains on their surface have been depicted as blood persistent drug delivery systems with potential purposes for intravenous drug administration. When attached to medications, PEG allows the carried protein from the blood to be passed through. This makes for a longer lasting medicinal effect and reduces toxicity, allowing for longer dosing intervals.

Our project is focused on synthesizing and testing some known medicinal agents (hydroxychloroquine, Imatinib, Urea, Vorinostat) in copper complexes. The copper ion, which can exist as a +1 or +2 ion, has an affinity for binding amine groups. Many drugs contain an amine group; therefore, copper (II) (Cu+2) can be considered a good candidate for delivery, specifically for drugs that have poor water solubility. The color of copper (II) in solutions can vary from blue to green with the possibility of being red to brown.

Most commonly used as an antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine⁹ is used for treatment against inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and Sjogren's Syndrome. Hydroxychloroquine, shown in Table 2, is derived from chloroquine. It was the first drug used against malaria. It works by blocking the activation of receptors on plasmacytoid dendritic cells, thus reducing the inflammatory process. It is also used as an anticancer drug that targets tumor-inducing cells. By fusing into a lysosome, Hydroxychloroquine is able to re-establish homeostasis and initiates apoptosis of the tumor cells. Recently it has been involved in cancer studies when combined with Interlukin-2.¹⁰

A Swedish company, Novartis, markets the drug Imatinib (Table 2). It is used in the treatment of malignant tumors. It is most commonly used against chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) 9 and gastrointestinal stromal tumors. This drug works by specifically inhibiting a certain enzyme associated with a particular part of the cancer. This enzyme is tyrosine kinase. Tyrosine kinase causes CML due to the source of high white blood cell counts it produces. Imatinib binds to tyrosine kinase and prevents its activity. Tyrosine kinase regulates normal cellular processes and plays a critical role in the development of many types of cancer. The most common side effect from taking this medication includes: weight gain, headache, nausea, and musculoskeletal pain.

Vorinostat (Table 2) is a drug used in the treatment against cutaneous T cell lymphoma.¹¹ It inhibits histone deacetylases (HDAC), which are responsible for regulating the function of a protein by acetylation through lysine modification, by acting as a chelator for zinc ions. In doing so, cell differentiation is no longer capable of happening. Vorinostat is the first HDAC inhibitor approved by the FDA. HDAC inhibitors are a class of enzymes that remove acetyl groups. Vorinostat is commonly sold under its trade name Zolinza.

Urea (Table 2) is a colorless and odorless solid organic compound. It is used in the metabolism of nitrogen containing compounds and is found in the urine of mammals. Several different types of Urea derivatives are utilized in treatment against cancer inducing cells 11. Their different mechanisms of action range from preventing tubulin growth to the inhibition of several enzymes including: protein tyrosine kinases, NADH oxidase, Raf kinases, and receptor tyrosine kinases. These enzymes hold crucial roles in tumor cell growth. Urea is highly soluble and only gives off an odor if it is combined with water. It is used in fertilizers and in raw material for chemical companies. It also goes by the name of Carbamide.

In our project, we synthesized four variations of copper complexes including copper-hydrochloroquine-vorinostat-urea (Cu-H-V-U); cop-per-hydrochloroquine-imatinib-vorinostat (Cu-H-I-V); copper-urea-imatinib-vorinostat (Cu-U-I-V); and copper-hydrochloroquine-imatinib-urea (Cu-H-I-U). Figure 2 shows the information for (Cu-H-I-V) and (Cu-H-I-U).

In December of 2012, we drafted four applications for testing by the National Cancer Institute’s 60 cancer cell line panel. Each complex had a specific arrangement based on its potential mechanism of action, water solubility, and stability. While there are some limited cancer drug treatments based on two drugs, our work was unique because it involved two or three drugs within a single complex. This gives the entire complex the same water solubility and allows all of the drugs to arrive at the diseased area simultaneously. Our group has had some success with this approach with some smaller complexes.

Over two billion people worldwide have TB, which is becoming more resistant to antibiotics. Our work has shown that binding a known antibiotic and TB drug, such as capreomycin, makes it more effective against TB. These tests were performed in the infectious diseases division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The graphs show that as lower concentrations of our drug is added, the bacteria is inhibited from growing. Sample data for drugs on the market compared to our novel compound are included in figure 3. Our compounds have been accepted for testing by the National Institutes of Health infectious diseases division for testing against TB. A copper-capreomycin-polymer complex synthesized at Valdosta State University (VSU) and tested by the National Institute of Health (infectious diseases section) shows promise as a TB drug. The VSU copper complex inhibited the bacteria associated with TB more effectively than many drugs already on the market. The copper (II) complex was synthesized as a one pot reaction. The details of this synthesis are confidential as they are currently patent pending.

Undergraduate students have worked on demonstrating copper complexes as a carrier for Taxol. Taxol is the best-selling amine containing cancer drug on the market. Table 3 shows some sample results from tests conducted on our compound by the National Cancer Institute¹² against different types of leukemia. Taxol does not have good water solubility but has a tremendous impact on the mitotic process of cancer cells. The NCI 60 cancer cell line panel consists of nine different types of cancer (breast, prostate, central nervous system, melanoma, renal, ovarian, colon, lung, and leukemia), each with multiple genetic variations. It is the international standard for testing a medicinal agent’s efficacy. The drug is tested against each cell line at five different concentrations, for a total of three hundred tests. Figure 4 shows NCI data for our copper-taxol efficacy when tested against the leukemia cell lines. At the lowest concentration (10-8 M), it has prevented over fifty percent of the cancer cells from growing when monitored over forty-eight hours.

Throughout this work our group used a range of analytical techniques to determine how the copper was binding to the different molecules and where it was binding to the medicinal species. For example, at VSU we used a LC-MS (Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometer), Fourier transform-Infrared (FT-IR), ultraviolet-visible spectrometer, and potentiometric titrations to help understand the structures. We collaborated with the National High Field magnet lab (Tallahassee, Florida) and the University of Georgia chemistry department to obtain high resolution Fourier transform-Ion Cyclotron Resonance (FT-ICR), 700 MHZ and 500 MHz Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectra in one and two dimensions for the nuclei of 1H, 13C and 15N. See figures 4 and 5 as sample spectra/data.

Conclusion

Several novel medicinal complexes have been developed at VSU using the copper (II) as the delivery agent. Our group developed two tables of drugs that can be delivered using this method. The National Institute of Health (NIH) tests these drugs in vitro. One of our cancer complexes has outperformed some of the most current cancer drugs on the market today. Our copper complex, used for the treatment of TB, has also tested well and has moved on to additional studies at the NIH. Approximately one hundred and fifty amine-containing drugs were taken from the World Health Organizations List of Medicinal Agents and another one-hundred drugs are known amine containing cancer drugs. Considering there are almost two hundred and fifty drugs representing many different MOAs, this suggests we can possibly derive thousands of new medicinal agents using the copper (II) complex as a delivery agent. A copper ion can potentially handle between one and six ligands or molecules, in different ratios. In many cases, these complexes have improved water solubility, stability, and delivery, potentially making this method more efficient than others currently being used.

m nino

Cu V-I-U

C-t-tHssCuNllOs | Energy = 333.38kJ'mol

H vornoaa q

water 'fs.

V V u. />• \ H-N /

H H ^ \ , - *“

MM

Surf Area = 237.670 Volume = 911.07 A² A³ | Dipole moment = 9.24 Weight = 932.563 Debye g mol

•j

Cu | H-V-U
C33H53CIC11N7O8 | Energy = -100 53kJ mol
H 'e"“ O |
1 H m |
\ y\>>v ' 1 / H H waer ltu hVOrar/cfflMOCWhe ™ |
Surf Area = 226.414 Volume = 748.79 | Dipole moment = 7.22 Weight = 1774.827
A² A³ | Debye gmol

Figure 2 cont.: The other two of the four drugs our group modeled, synthesized and used in applications to the National Cancer Institute.

Table 1: The table below illustrates structures of Penicillin G, Capreomycin, and Amikacin and describes their Mechanisms of Action (MOA).

V° s

o

H

-j^S\^CH₃

Cooh

Penicillin G inhibits the formation of peptidoglycan cross-links in the cell wall of the bacteria. It is able to do this because of its {3-lactam group. The p-lactam binds to the enzyme that links the peptidoglycan molecule to the bacteria. Being able to prevent the bacteria from cross-linking will cause the bacteria to die.

H?f

o

"OnY

Cr NH H Hw

v^yS

° °HN^J

Capreomycin is a cyclic polypeptide antimicrobial. Not much is known about its MOA but is believed that Capreomycin inhibits protein synthesis and binds to the 70S nbosomal unit and to some components in the bacterial cell. These cells produce abnormal proteins needed for the bacteria's survival. Therefore, by being able to inhibit the cells production of abnormal proteins, Capreomycin will ultimately end up killing the bacteria.

NHj

1

HO,,_ ,.OH

M ?" ° 1 °<5S^f,Nv/Vv^OH OH

(^•om ”'9

J H^»J .OH H/4 O |"'

OH

OH

Amikacin works by binding to the 3OS ribosomal subunit. It then inhibits protein synthesis to prevent the initiation complex of the messenger RNA. Misleading the mRNA allowing the incorrect amino acids to be inserted into the polypeptide causes the bacteria to be unable to synthesize proteins.

Table 2: The below table shows, respectively, 3D and 2D structures of Hydroxychloroquine, Imatinib, Vorinostat, and Urea.

3-D Structure | 2-D Structure

A. Hvdroxvchloroquine

OH

, r¹

HIM

cl

B. Imatinib |
C. Vorinostat |
D. Urea | 0 I h₂n nh₂

Table 3: Sample data for a copper complex developed in our lab and tested by the National Institute of Health. The average logGI50 values (Molar) for the copper (II)-taxol is a minimum of 1.44544 times better than taxol (or 44%) more efficient. Fifty-one of the copper-complex were the same or better than pure taxol. Twenty-three of the cell lines have the same value. If both have same GI50 value, copper-complex was selected because it has higher water solubility and more likely to perform better in animal/human trials.

Panel Name | Line Name | Copper- Complex flogCfco) | Taxol OogGbo) | Copper-Complex / Taxol ratio | Favored
Average (10*) | — | -7.748 | -7.5ES | 0.69183 | Cu-Complex
Leukemia | CCRF-CEM | <-8 | -8 | 1 | Cu-Complex
Leukemia | HL-60(TB) | <-8 | -8 | 1 | Cu-Compex
Leukemia | K-562 | < -8 | -7.9 | 0.79432 | Cu-Complex
Leukemia | MOLT-1 | < -8 | -7.8 | 0.6309 | Cu-Complex
Leukemia | RP MI-8226 | < -8 | -8 | 1 | Cu-Complex
Leukemia | SR | < -8 | -7.5 | 0.31622 | Cu-Complex

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the VSU-QEP and EPA-P3 for sponsoring work in this area. We would also like to thank the VSU-IT department for expertise with hardware and software issues and the chemistry department for facilities. The VSU Major Equipment fund is thanked as is the scientific facilities at the University of Georgia (TOF-MS, NMR), National High Field Magnet Lab (Ft-ICR and NMR) and the National Institutes of Health (Cancer Institute, Infectious Diseases). VSU applied for a United States Patent application in the winter of 2012 on this system.

170

The 2012 Charter Schools Constitutional Amendment in Georgia: A County-level Analysis of the Election Results

by Christopher John May

*Prepared for Presentation at the Southern Political Science Association Meeting, Orlando, FL, January 3-5, 2013

Educational reform has always been a vital topic in almost every recent presidential election. With the economy looming as the most pressing national issue in the 2012 presidential election, education seemed to be an issue that was placed on the back burner; however, this was not the case in the state of Georgia where education reform was the most controversial and pressing state issue. A proposed amendment to the Georgia Constitution would allow for the creation of charter schools. Charter schools have been viewed as the impetus behind most of the reforms in education which have occurred in the last twenty years. Charter schools have also been touted as allowing for more innovation and accountability while increasing parental options for education. Parties on both sides of the issue waged a war of words and campaigning with each side accusing the other of misleading the public. Approval of the amendment to the Georgia State Constitution would pave the way for more publicly funded charter schools. The amendment would allow the state to approve the applications to create charter schools even if local school boards have denied the applications. Prior to passage of the amendment, local school boards had the only approval authority. Opponents of the amendment argued that the language in the Charter Schools Amendment was confusing to the voters. The amendment was supported by the Republican governor of the state and largely denounced by state and local school boards as taking away their ability to effectively educate.

Amendment 1, or the Charter School Amendment as it was referred to, was passed in the November general election as a constitutional amendment on the ballot in the state of Georgia. The amendment would confer authority to create charter schools to an appointed body of commissioners. The creation of more charter schools will give the public more choice on school; however, it will take away authority for the creation of these schools from local school boards. This paper will attempt to discover the key factors that determined the percentage yes vote among the voters of the 159 counties in Georgia for approval of the amendment. The first section will consist of a literature review which will examine some of the background research done on charter schools. This literature review will also include some background research on school choice which is synonymous with the issue of charter schools. The literature review will also explore the reasons the amendment did not gain approval in some counties. The second section will present the hypotheses being tested and present the data and methods being used. The third section will be an analysis and examination of the research findings. The final section will summate the findings of the research and offer a conclusion as to the reasons for these findings.

Literature review

Prior to the beginning of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, minorities lagged far behind in the area of education. Minorities gained ground with the passage of legislation; however, in the past 20 years they have lost most of the ground gained and are now once again significantly behind (Austin 2012). With the charter school debate raging on both sides, lines have been drawn along racial lines in most instances. Tedin and Weiher (2004) assert that critics of school choice have determined that the racial composition of schools will not be kept intact with the proliferation of charter schools. Critics further argue that the charter school movement will further widen the ethnic and racial segregation in the public education system (Tedin and Weiher 2004). One side of the national racial debate asserts that minorities fall behind in areas such as education. Schneider and Buckley (2003) offer support for charter schools that help minorities achieve. Their research in the heavily minority Washington DC charter school area found that charter schools in that area received higher grades than those of traditional area public schools (Schneider and Buckley 2003). Rocha (2007) examined the composition of local school boards which play a prominent role in the creation of charter schools. Rocha (2007) suggests that a coalition exists between minorities and different ethnic groups which help them gain greater representation on local school boards. While there is much debate over the role race plays in the creation of charter schools, there is no debate over the fact that it does play a significant role in public education.

Charter schools have been thrust into the forefront as part of the national debate on the public education system in America. Recent popular culture has even been affected by the debate with the national theatrical release of the movie, Waiting for Superman, which addresses the subject of charter schools (Corliss 2010). Renzulli and Roscigno (2005) found that charter school diffusion and implementation of legislation creating charter schools varies from state to state. States seem to duplicate the passage of legislation based upon their spatial proximity to other states which have recently passed similar legislation (Renzulli and Roscigno, 2005). Renzulli and Evans (2005) offer additional support for the increased diffusion of charter schools. Their research examined the concentration of charter schools in areas where whites reside in urban minority neighborhoods. Whites were more apt to request the creation of a charter school in an attempt to flee the minority education system. This phenomenon is often referred to as “white flight” (Renzulli and Evans 2005, 400). If the pattern that Renzulli and Evans discover holds true, the creation of charter schools may soon create a chasm between the races.

The manifest goal of charter schools is to improve the overall quality of the public education systems. Cox and Witko (2008) propose the idea that there are also latent, nonacademic benefits associated with the creation of charter schools. Cox and Witko (2008) assert that government created institutions such as charter schools to stimulate the growth of social capital. Morley (2006) found that there is also an increase in for-profit charter schools. For-profit schools are often run by firms which operate several schools and they are becoming a significant force in the charter school arena (Morley, 2006). Charter schools are in a position to be agents for change due to the idea that participation and cooperation among groups is vital to the formation of these schools (Cox and Witko 2008). Cooperation at the legislative level is needed as well as participation among the parents at the individual school level. Cox and Witko (2008) included PTA volunteering, attendance at school events, and discussion among parents in their examination of charter schools and social capital. It is this participation at the individual school level that was found to be a main precursor for whether or not parents actively participated in the choosing of the school their child attended (Cox and Witko 2008).

School choice is an issue that also has political implications other than becoming an amendment on which to vote. Holyoke et al. (2007) examined the role of charter schools who take on the characteristics of social service missions. These schools also were discovered to more frequently organize themselves in support of a social service nonprofit group even when not founded by or affiliated with that group (Holyoke et al. 2007, 209). The argument for charter schools as a vehicle for political change is an argument that Wells, Slayton, and Scott (2002) present as a basis for describing the representative democracy of the United States. They assert that the reason for the existence of legislation that creates charter schools is so the “winners in a representative democracy get to use public authority to impose their authority on the losers” (Wells, Slayton and Scott 2002, 339). Holyoke et al. (2007, 212) establish a framework in which charter schools develop a proclivity for viewing governmental agencies as friendly and a source of support. It is this inclination that makes charter schools more likely to “proactively engage in advocacy regardless of how receptive lawmakers may be to their goals” (Holyoke et al. 2007, 212).

Most of the debates over school choice and charter schools have been drawn along racial and political lines. The socioeconomic status of a majority of the United States population is also drawn along these lines. Arguments have ensued over the educability of minority students in charter schools in urban areas (Buckley and Schneider 2005). Opponents of the Charter School Amendment in Georgia resided in mostly rural areas.

The Charter School issue has a short but tumultuous history in Georgia. Thornton (2012) proposed that the debate began in May of 2011 when the Georgia Supreme Court by a 4-3 vote declared the state run Charter Schools Commission to be unconstitutional. This was seen as a legal victory by school systems. However, the victory was a short-lived one as the Georgia General Assembly passed Georgia House Bill 797 in March of 2012. HB 797 provided for the reformation of the State Charter Schools Commission (Thornton 2012). The implementation of HB 797 was contingent upon the passage of the corresponding House Resolution 1162. HR 1162 would allow for a ballot referendum to decide if the Georgia State Constitution would be amended to authorize the Charter Schools Commission to approve the opening of charter schools (Thornton 2012). Opponents of HR 1162 held that the constitutional amendment was a subversive way to reestablish the Charter Schools Commission and “go back to approving charters over the objections of local boards of education” (Downey 2012).

Downey (2012) reports that the creation of a state level, politically appointed body was intentionally left out of the language of the ballot referendum. Downey (2012) further asserts that the question on the ballot bore no resemblance to the original contents of the proposed constitutional amendment. The exact wording of the ballot referendum was written by the Constitutional Amendment Publication Board. This three member board consisted of the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, and the Speaker of the House (Downey 2012). Opponents of the Charter School Amendment also insisted that uninformed voters were also deceived into voting “yes” by an inaccurate and misleading “preamble” that stated that the Amendment “provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public charter school options” (Downey 2012). The Charter School Amendment passed in Georgia by an approval rate of 58 percent. The vote may be over but the debate and controversy will continue for a long time.

Data and methods

The units of analysis for this study are the 159 counties that compose the state of Georgia. The dependent variable is the percentage of the vote in favor of the Charter Schools Amendment. This constitutional referendum was presented as Amendment One in the November 6, 2012 State General Election. Data for the percentage approval vote was obtained from the website of the Office of the Georgia Secretary of State. There are six independent variables that will be examined as possible predictors for the percentage approval vote. The data for the independent variable of the percentage of the county voting for the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, in the 2012 presidential election was also obtained from the website of the Office of the Georgia Secretary of State.

Data for the independent variables of population density (persons per square mile), per capita income, percentage of population with bachelor’s degrees, and percentage African American population were obtained from the United States Bureau of the Census, State and County Quick Facts. Independent variable data for density, per capita income and percentage African American population are from the 2010 United States Bureau of the Census, and was accurate as of 2010. Data for the independent variable of percent of population with bachelor’s degrees or higher was obtained for the 2010 United States Bureau of the Census; however, it is an average of data from 2006-2010 and includes persons 25 years of age and older. Data for the independent variable of county high school graduation rate were obtained from the website of the Georgia Department of Education and are current for the 2011 graduation year. Of note in this variable is that the rates are calculated using a recently released nationwide formula developed by the United States Department of Education.

The percentage approval for the Charter School Amendment per county is the dependent variable and ranges from 25.75 percent to 71.54 percent with a mean of 50.674 percent as noted in Table 1. The standard deviation is 8.758. Of the 159 counties in Georgia, 81 of the counties approved the measure with 78 rejecting the measure.

The percentage African American population for each county ranges from 0.70 percent to 73.09 percent with a mean of 28.044 percent. The standard deviation is 17.197. The mean is close to the state average of 30 percent. The standard deviation of 17.197 reflects the high variance of the African American population across the counties.

Variable | Minimum | Table 1 Variables, Characteristics, Maximum Mean | and Sources Median | StdDev | Souri e
Percent Approval for Charter School | 25.75 | 71.54 | 50.674 | 50.450 | 8.758 | Georgia Secretary of State
Percent Black | 0.70 | 73.09 | 28.044 | 27.50 | 17.197 | U. S. Bureau of the Census
Density | 9 | 2588 | 202.958 | 58.500 | 392 617 | U. S. Bureau of the Census
Per Capita income | 22,188 | 87,687 | 40,000 | 37,000 | 11,000 | U. S. Bureau of the Census
Percent Bachelor's Degree + | 6.7 | 47.6 | 15.757 | 11.00 | 8.462 | U. S. Bureau of the Census
High School Grad Rate | 40 | 91 | 69.742 | 70.00 | 9.570 | Georgia Dept of Education
Percent Vote for Romney | 14.74 | 86.53 | 61.792 | 64.640 | 15.092 | U. S. Bureau of the Census

The population density of the 159 counties ranges from 9 persons per square mile to 2,588 persons per square mile with a mean of 202.958 and a standard deviation of 392.617. This wide range and large standard deviation reflects the glaring differences between the most rural areas and the most heavily populated urban areas. The per capita income of the 159 counties ranged from $22,188 to $87,678 with a median of $37,000 and a standard deviation of $11,000.

The percent of the population 25 years of age and older with a bachelor’s degree or higher ranged from 6.7 percent to 47.6 percent with a mean of 15.757 percent and a standard deviation of 8.462. Of note in this figure is that 82 percent or 131 of the counties have 20 percent or fewer residents with bachelor’s or higher degrees.

The high school graduation rate ranges from 40 percent to 91 percent with a mean of 69.742 and a standard deviation of 9.570. This data and figures are extremely important because support for charter schools may be tied directly to recent release of adjusted data which places Georgia’s rate at 67 percent and among the worst in the nation (www.doe.k12.ga.us).

The percent vote for Romney in the 2012 presidential election ranged from 14.74 percent to 86.53 percent with a mean of 61.792 and a standard deviation of 15.092. The wide range is likely a result of the African American black population representing less than 10 percent in several counties.

The hypotheses that will be tested in this study are as follows:

H1 - As the African American population increases in a county, the percentage “yes” vote will decline.

H2 - As population density in a county declines, the percentage “yes” vote will also decline.

H3- As per capita income in a county increases, the percentage “yes” vote will increase.

H4- As high school graduation rates in a county increases, the percentage “yes” vote will decrease.

H5- As the percent of the vote by county for the Republican nominee in the 2012 presidential election increases, the percentage “yes” vote will also increase.

H6 - As the percentage of the population with college degrees by county increases, the percentage of “yes” votes will also increase.

H7 — As the percentage of population under 18 years of age increases, the percentage of yes votes will increase.

The data analysis software used to conduct the analysis for this study is The Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The appendix contains the dataset used in the study.

Findings

A multivariate regression analysis was conducted for all independent variables. Results of the data analysis can be found in Table 2. The regression model examines the percentage “yes” vote as the dependent variable across the 159 counties of Georgia. The most apparent variable is the percentage Romney vote. The percentage of the vote Mitt Romney received in a county was found to be statistically significant at a probability of less than .01. For every percentage increase in the Romney vote, the “yes” vote in a county declines by .403 of a percent. This may have been the most surprising statistic to come out of the research. Support for the amendment was hypothesized to be highest among Republicans but the relationship was in the opposite direction. This negative correlative supports the idea that support for the amendment was strongest in areas where support for Mitt Romney was lowest. This finding reinforces the idea that minorities were largely in support of the amendment. The graduation rate is also statistically significant at p<.01. For every percent increase in the graduation rate, the percent “yes” vote decreased by almost one fifth of a percent. This goes in line with the idea that areas with higher performing schools may not see a need to “improve student achievement” through creation of charter schools. The African American population in a county was significant at p<.05. The counties with the highest percent of African Americans overwhelmingly support the amendment. The per capita income was found to be statistically significant at p<.01. For every dollar increase in per capita income, the “yes” vote increased by .001 percent. The percentage of the population with a college degree, population density, and population under 18 are negatively associated with approval of the Charter School Amendment, but the results are not statistically significant. The independent variables explain almost half of the variance (adjusted r2 = .485) in the “yes” approval vote for the Charter Schools Amendment. A diagnostic for multicollinearity was run with all VIF scores for independent variables falling below 10. The highest VIF scores were 7.4 for the Romney vote and 6.4 for the African American population. A plot of the standardized residuals of the regression model revealed a normal distribution with a mean of zero.

Table 2

Predicting the Charter School Amendment Vote

Independent Variables | Percentage “Yes" Vote Across all 159 GA Counties
Percentage African American | -.166* (.074)
Per Capita Income | .001** (.000)
Percentage Population Under 18 | -.317 (.195)
Percentage with a College Degree | - .117 (.115)
Romney Vote in 2012 Election | -.403** (.091)
High School Graduation Rate | -.188** (.060)
Population Density | -.001 (.000)

Cell entries are unstandardized regression coefficients. Standard errors in parentheses.

*p<.05    F=22.270**

**p<.01    adjusted    r2    = .485

N= 159

Conclusion

The findings of the study show that the support for the Charter School Amendment was negatively affected by the racial composition of a county that supports H1. The findings also found that the Republican initiated amendment received lower support in counties with higher percentages of the population voting for Mitt Romney. Counties that supported the Republican presidential candidate largely rejected this measure. This finding was opposite of H5. As expected, the high school graduation rate had a significant negative relationship in that counties with higher graduation rates had lower approval of the amendment that supports H4.

Per capita income was shown to have a positive association with the “yes” vote that supports H3. Population density, college education, and population under 18 had no effect on the “yes” vote; therefore, the null hypothesis was accepted for H2, H6, and H7.

The Charter School Amendment was the second controversial issue placed in front of Georgia voters in 2012. The first, the Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST), was widely rejected by the Georgia electorate (LaPlant and LaPlant 2012, 2). Both issues were Republican initiatives with strong Republican legislative support; however, the outcomes were completely different. The Charter School Amendment initiative gained broad support across the state; conversely, the T-SPLOST initiative was defeated in 75 percent of the regions in the state (LaPlant and LaPlant 2012, 11). The similarities between the two initiatives are that the GOP presidential vote was a strong negative predictor of the “yes” vote for both. The manner in which support for the Charter School Amendment was garnered may be further utilized as a template for future voting referendums. This template should include the input of minorities as they were a crucial reason that the Charter School Amendment passed in Georgia. Georgia Republicans may want to explore if across the board support for other issues can be coalesced in the same manner in which support for Amendment 1 was. If this effort can be replicated, the Republicans may be able to garner support for their other initiatives and therefore the success.

Charter schools, school choice, and education reform are going to be vital issues on the political landscape of Georgia in the near future. Issues of contention may include the approval of charter schools by the state which have been previously rejected by local school boards. The proliferation of for profit corporations operating charter schools is certain to increase. The quality of the education at these “bottom line” schools will be an area for further exploration. The most meaningful analysis in the context of charter schools should probe the implications upon minority students of the “dismantling of desegregation” that charter schools may fuel. Charter schools are regarded as the “vehicles” that students can use to receive an exemplary education. The state of Georgia has to address these and other issues to ensure that all students are allowed to “ride.”

mnino

Works Cited

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²

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⁴

   “The FDA's Drug Review Process: Ensuring Drugs Are Safe and Effective.” FDA, 2012. Web. 13 Dec. 2012.

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   Ibid.

⁶

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¹⁰

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¹¹

   Inhibiting Systemic Autophagy during Interleukin 2 Immunotherapy Promotes Long-term Tumor Regression, Xiaoyan Liang, Michael E. De Vera, William J. Buchser, Antonio Romo de Vivar Chavez, Patricia Loughran , Donna Beer Stolz, Per Basse, Tao Wang, Bennett Van Houten, Herbert J. Zeh III, and Michael T. Lotze , Cancer Res June 1, 2012 72; 2791)

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Effects of Locus of Control and

Dream Recall Training on Dreaming

by Crystal Logan

Two properties have been identified in all dreams: the presence of the dreamer as a contributor to the dream or simply as a spectator, and the presence of the dreamscape or dream world (Staunton & O'Rourke, 2012). Even the congenitally blind dream of a physical dream world although they experience it with the senses of touch, smell, taste, and hearing rather than sight; these findings are in direct contrast with those concerning dreams in people with sight who dream primarily of a visual dreamscape (Staunton & O'Rourke, 2012). Other research has shown that the proportions of gender and race, themes of conflict and aggression, and levels of emotional intensity in dreams are mirrored in the dreamers waking life, and it has generally been accepted that dreams reflect our real life experiences (Hoekstra, Stos, Swendson, & Hoekstra, 2012). People recently exposed to traumatic events have been shown to experience stronger negative emotions and more imagery that reflects literal and associative aspects of the event in their dreams as compared to others, so prominent waking experiences appear to be featured in dreams rather than mundane daily occurrences (Davidson & Lynch, 2012). The storylines of dreams may merely portray the dreamer’s preoccupations of the waking world (Staunton & O'Rourke, 2012). While research conducted on the thematic content of dreams has been cast in a negative light in the last couple of decades, studies regarding dream recall have flourished (Paulsson & Parker, 2006).

Dream recall studies have traditionally been executed in sleep laboratories or in the subjects’ natural home environments, but for large sample sizes the home environment is more frequently utilized due to the extra time and costs associated with using a sleep laboratory (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). In natural home environment dream studies, researchers depend on the subject to accurately remember dreams and to properly report them to the researcher at a designated later time (Pauls-son & Parker, 2006). The two most commonly employed means of measuring dream recall for studies done in the home environment are questionnaires and dream diaries or journals (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). Questionnaires rely on estimation over a prior period of time and are subject to faulty recall while dream diaries or journals allow the subject to record the number of dreams recalled each day as they occur (Paulsson & Parker, 2006).

Increased ability to recall dreams, a goal of many dream studies, has been attributed to different variables by prior research. A study performed in the 1970s showed that dreams are more likely to be recalled when they are unusual or striking (i.e., dreams that are particularly bizarre or have some significant meaning for the dreamer) and when they are experienced directly before awakening (Reed, 1978). Participants who were very motivated by personal reasons to recall dreams showed bigger increases in dream recall than others; this phenomenon has been linked to an extended length of time that the subject spends directly after waking in an attempt to recall dreams (Reed, 1978). Meditation has been linked to increased ability to recall dreams because the practice instigates “an attunement to a level of awareness that is also present in the dream state and thereby reduces the usual dissociation between the waking and dream state that often make the forgetting of dreams have the character of amnesia” (Reed, 1978, p. 151). Gender differences in dream recall have been noted with females recalling their dreams more often than males (Aumann, Lahl, & Pietrowsky, 2012). In addition, political ideology has been linked to an increased ability to recall dreams. American liberals, regardless of gender, have been shown to have increased dream recall as compared to American conservatives (Bulkeley, 2012). Nevertheless, researchers are still trying to determine why some people can recall their dreams more reliably than others.

A voluminous amount of research has been conducted on the association between personality constructs and dream recall; however, the majority of these studies have focused on the elements of the Five Factor Model (FFM) (Aumann, Lahl, &Pietrowsky, 2012). Weak and conflicting associations have been found for the effects of neuroticism and creativity, but openness to experience and boundary structure (the thinness or thickness of boundaries segregating mental areas or processes) have been positively correlated to increased dream recall (Aumann, Lahl, & Pietrowsky, 2012). Yet, at the time the current study was conducted, no prior research could be found evaluating Locus of Control’s (LOC) relationship to dream recall frequency. LOC could have affected training outcomes because if participants believe that they have influence over events in their lives as a result of their actions, then they may also put that belief to work to increase dream recall frequency and dream control by applying themselves more fully to training programs.

Rotter (1966) created the Internal-External Locus of Control Scale to measure the degree to which someone believes that outcomes are based on his or her own actions or personal characteristics versus the degree to which someone believes that outcomes are based on chance, luck, fate, or others. He explains that people who operate from an external LOC are inclined to believe that happenings in their lives are largely governed by external forces which they cannot control while those who operate from an internal LOC believe that happenings in their lives are largely under their own control. Since this concept has been introduced, there has been a tidal wave of studies conducted on LOC in social, clinical, and developmental psychology, business and management, and education; countless theories have branched from Rotter’s theory of LOC (Cheng, Cheung, Chio, & Chan, 2012). According to Bandura, the LOC is not inherent; it is learned through social interactions and reinforcements (Cheng, Cheung, Chio, & Chan, 2012). The learned helplessness theory was founded upon the concept that an external LOC is “maladaptive” (Cheng, Cheung, Chio, & Chan, 2012). Research is needed to identify whether or not there is a link between perceived control of the real world environment and perceived control of the dream world environment. Control within a dream is termed as lucidity (Voss, 2011).

A lucid dream is one in which the dreamer recognizes that they are dreaming and can sometimes begin, influence the course of, or end the dream (Voss, 2011). Lucid dreams frequently begin when the dreamer realizes there is an abnormality in the dreamscape which guides the dreamer to lucidity through the dreamer examining the abnormality (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). Estimates show that at least 47% of the population has had at least 1 lucid dream in their lifetime, and that approximately 13% of dreams documented in dream journals are identified as lucid (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). Lucid dreamers may have brought studies of dream content back into a positive focus due to their ability to signal to researchers that they are having a lucid dream, what their dream content is, and when such content occurs (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). In 1975, LaBerge instructed participants to indicate to the researcher that they were having a lucid dream by rolling their eyes twice from left to right; this movement was easily discernible from the rapid eye movement (REM) that occurs during dreaming (Voss, 2011). This method allowed researchers in 2009 to measure concurrent brain activity during lucid dreaming with an electroencephalography (EEG) which shows that brain activity of lucid dreaming may have its own electrical signature which bears a striking resemblance to that of waking consciousness, especially in the frontal lobe (Voss, 2011). Further evidence has suggested that time during a lucid dream correlates with real (waking) time (Paulsson & Parker, 2006).

There have been multiple methods used in the past to induce lucid dreaming including The Reflection Technique created by Tholey in 1989 which calls for the subjects to ask themselves multiple times each day if they are awake or dreaming to encourage the subjects to frequently monitor their level of consciousness (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). Tholey later revised his technique by instructing participants to tell themselves that they would have a lucid dream that night, to imagine themselves having a lucid dream, and to plan for what they would do inside of the lucid dream; it was named Tholey’s Combined Technique (Paulsson & Parker, 2006). In 1990, LaBerge and Rheingold modified Tholey’s technique and entitled it The Reflection-Intention Technique which instructed participants to plan for when they would examine their state of consciousness, to examine their state of consciousness as planned, to imagine themselves having a lucid dream, and to imagine themselves doing what they had planned to do once inside a lucid dream. It appeared to be successful in increasing the amount of lucid dreams recalled, and the technique was repeated in 2006 by Paulsson & Parker with more consistent results. The ability to lucid dream has been shown to benefit the ones who are able to learn this skill.

Lucid dream training programs have helped individuals afflicted by nightmare disorders by teaching them how to take control of their dreams and neutralize their nemesis (Jenkins, 2012). David Jenkins describes this ability well:

In the case of the nightmare, imagining the dream as a story can prepare the dreamer to master the nightmare’s climax. Within the logic of the nightmare, it enables the dreamer to identify or create sources of support and to see herself as someone who can solve the nightmare problem. It provides the dreamer with the means to eliminate the nightmare. (p. 101)

Because nightmares are a common side effect of past trauma, it is possible that the ability to lucid dream may help people afflicted with PTSD as a result of physical or sexual assault or wartime to confront the person or situation which caused them trauma in a safe environment. Sports psychologist, Daniel Erlacher, reported that competitors can internalize intricate motor sequences, like those necessary for executing the high jump, more rapidly after targeted lucid dream training (Voss, 2011).

Other supporters of the mind-body connection may desire to investigate the possible self-healing powers of the lucid dream world where one can be whole, healthy, and without pain or disease. Maximum positive visualization may be attainable, allowing dreamers to explore success in their educational, vocational, and social lives, and leading them to develop the confidence needed to achieve those aspirations in the real world. Fantasies that would be impossible in the real world could be delved into, such as flying or becoming a mermaid, to increase quality of life.

The range of benefits cannot be fully investigated until more reliable lucid dream induction techniques are established. Therefore, the purpose of this study was twofold: to increase dream recall via Dream Recall Training and to evaluate the relationship, if any, between an increased ability to recall dreams and Locus of Control. The Dream Recall Training instructions are expected to increase dream recall; they were derived from the research literature describing the previously successful dream recall training and lucid dream induction techniques, Tholey’s Combined Technique and LaBerge’s and Rheingold’s Reflection-Intention Technique. Because previously explored personality constructs have not been consistently associated with dream ability or recall, the current research also aimed at evaluating effects of locus of control as a participant variable on dreaming. Specifically, an internal locus of control is associated with the belief that events in one’s life are mostly within one’s own control; hence, it may be reasonable to ask if that perceived ability to control extends to one’s dream life.

Method Participants

The participants for this study were recruited by asking for interested volunteers among the author’s coworkers, classmates, family members, and friends. The purpose of this study was described as a five-day study on the effects of Locus of Control and Dream Recall Training on non-lucid and lucid dream recall. The sample included 15 subjects who resided in South Georgia at the time of the study. There were 12 females (80%) and 3 males (20%) ranging in ages from 19-61 years old (M = 39.13, SD = 14.60). 60% of participants were married at the time of the study, 20% were in a committed relationship, 13.3% were single, and 6.7% were divorced. All participants had at least some college education although 40% had no degree yet at the time of the study, 33.3% held a Bachelor’s degree, 13.3% had earned a technical certificate or diploma, 6.7% had an Associate’s degree, and 6.7% had earned a Professional degree. Although 60% of the participants were not enrolled in college at the time this data was collected, 13.3% were seniors, 13.3% were juniors, and 13.3% were sophomores. Most of the participants were employed only (53.3%) while others were working and attending college (26.7%), attending college only (13.3%), or neither employed nor attending college (6.7%). Average household income was varied with 20% earning less than $10,000 per year, 6.7% earning $ 10,000-$29,999 a year, 33.3% bringing in $30,000-$69,999 each year, 13.3% earning $70,000-$99,999 per year, and 26.7% bringing in over $ 100,000 every year. Unfortunately, the sample was not very ethnically diverse with 73.3% White Americans and 26.7% Black Americans. Though most of the participants were raised in the Southern Region of the United States (86.7%), 6.7% were from the Northeastern Region and 6.7% were from the Midwestern Region as identified by the U.S. Census Bureau. 46.7% of subjects reported being raised in a rural community, 46.7% reported growing up in a suburban community, and 6.7% reported being brought up in a metropolitan community. Finally, there was an even mix of participants identified with an Internal Locus of Control (53.3%) and an External Locus of Control (46.7%). There was no recompense offered to the participants for completing the study. IRB approval was not necessary for this study as it was exempt according to the university IRB’s policies and procedures.

Materials

Informed Consent. The Informed Consent form was in a typed format which outlined the purpose of the study, procedures, possible risks or discomfort, possible benefits, available treatment for adverse experiences, confidentiality, authorization, and explanation that termination of participation would be acceptable at any time and would not result in any loss of possible benefits.

Baseline Questionnaire. The Baseline Questionnaire asked for demographic information including sex, age, marital status, highest degree of education achieved, class standing if currently enrolled in college, employment status, household income, ethnicity, religious affiliation, current or final GPA, region of the U.S in which the participant was raised, type of community in which the participant was raised, previous non-lucid and lucid dream recall frequency, and average number of hours slept each night. The sixteen questions were typed in a multiple-choice format.

Internal-External Locus of Control Scale (Rotter, 1966). This scale consists of twenty-nine multiple-choice questions of which five are filler items in a typed format. It categorizes participants on a spectrum in which an external LOC is identified by the lower half and an internal LOC is identified by the upper half. It was presented to participants with the name “Locus of Control Questionnaire” to increase uniformity and simplicity in order to aid participant understanding.

Dream Recall Training (DRT) . The Dream Recall Training was created by the author by drawing elements from the Reflection Technique by Tholey, the Reflection-Intention Training Program by LaBerge & Rhein-gold, and a technique for “Setting Up Dreaming” described by Victor Sanchez in his book The Teachings of Don Carlos.The training directed participants to question their waking and dreaming states repeatedly to raise awareness of the differences between the states in order to increase ability to lucid dream. The DRT instructions were provided in the 10-step typed format outlined below:

1. Draw a dot about the diameter of a pencil eraser on the back of your dominant hand as part of your normal daily routine.

2.    Throughout the day, every 2 hours, focus on the dot for one minute then ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” You will likely immediately know that you are not dreaming.The purpose of this line of inquiry is to prepare you to ask this same question while you are dreaming.

3.    Avoid any drug or alcohol consumption because it could interfere with dreaming.

4.    Redraw the dot if necessary during your routine to get ready to

go to sleep.

5.    Before going to bed, think about a recurring dream that you have or a particular waking fantasy. Use the same recurring dream/waking fantasy in your training every night. Relive the dream/fantasy, experiencing the sights, sounds, and feelings. Play it from beginning to end in your head, keeping the events the same.

6.    While lying in bed, focus on the dot for one minute then ask yourself if you are dreaming. You know you are not. Visualize yourself in your recurring or fantasy dream. This time, see yourself remembering to look for the dot and asking yourself if you are dreaming. Imagine that you decide you must be dreaming because you have been in this situation before or you notice an unrealistic element to the scene. Imagine yourself using this knowledge to change the dream in a specific way. Do this in the same way every time you complete this training exercise.

7.    Go to sleep.

8.    As soon as you awake, try to lie still for several minutes without opening your eyes if possible. Try to recall any dreams that you had. If you remember any additional dreams during the day, add them to your data.

9.    Follow the instructions for entering your data in the Dream Diary.

10.    Restart at step 1.

Dream Diary. The Dream Diary was a typed worksheet designed to allow the participant to record the following data in a chart for five consecutive days: amount of time slept, whether or not the training was followed before the sleep period, the number of non-lucid dreams recalled, the number of lucid dreams recalled, and any additional comments the participants wished to provide. Instructions on how to properly fill out each section were included along with definitions of non-lucid and lucid dreams.

Debriefing Form. The Debriefing Form was in a typed format and expressed appreciation to the participants for participating, informed them of the research hypotheses, outlined the results found, listed possible implications, and provided the contact information of the primary researcher for any further questions.

Procedure

The Informed Consent form, Baseline Questionnaire, Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, and Dream Diary were provided in a stapled packet to all of the participants except one; the author administered the questionnaires and provided the training and dream diary information verbally over the telephone for one participant because that participant lived several hours away and the time allowed to complete this study did not allow for the documents to be mailed. The Dream Recall Training was included in every other packet handed out to account for random assignment. Participants were advised take the packets home to fill out and to return the questionnaires and the Dream Diary by a designated date. 27 packets were given to potential participants, but only 15 completed the study so there was a 55.56% drop out rate. All data was coded and entered into SPSS for analysis. After the data was analyzed, the Debriefing form was given to the participants.

Design

A 2 x 2 (Dream Recall Training x Locus of Control) between-sub-jects factorial ANOVA was conducted first on non-lucid dream recall and then on lucid dream recall. Correlations were run on all data collected by the Baseline Questionnaire to determine if there were any unexpected relationships between variables.

Results Primary Analyses

Effects on Non-lucid Dream Recall. There was no main effect found for Dream Recall Training (DRT) on non-lucid dream recall, F(1, 11) = 1.01, p = .336, °Sp^ = .084. Participants who were given DRT (M = 4.07, SD = 3.22) did not recall a significantly different number of non-lucid dreams from those who were not given DRT (M = 2.63, SD = 2.26).There was also no main effect seen for Locus of Control (LOC)

on non-lucid dream recall, F(1, 11) = .101, p = .756, °Sp^ = .009. Participants with an Internal LOC (M = 3.00, SD = 2.00) did not recall a significantly different number of non-lucid dreams as those with an External LOC (M = 3.64, SD = 3.57). Additionally, there was no significant interaction between LOC and DRT for non-lucid dream recall, F(1, 11)

= 1.88, p = .197, °Sp^= .146. Participants who were given DRT and who had an Internal LOC (M =2.67, SD = 1.53) did not recall a significantly different number of non-lucid dreams than those who were given the DRT and who had an External LOC (M = 5.13, SD = 3.97) (see Table 1). Participants who were not given DRT and who had an Internal LOC (M = 3.20, SD = 2.39) also did not recall a significantly number of non-lucid dreams from those who were not given DRT and who had an External LOC (M = 1.67, SD = 2.08) (see Table 2).

Effects on Lucid Dream Recall. There was no main effect found

for DRT on lucid dream recall, F(1, 11) = 2.92, p = .116, °Sp^ = .210. Participants who were given DRT (M = .86, SD = 1.07) did not recall a significantly different number of lucid dreams from those who were not given DRT (M = 4.63, SD = 4.87). There was also no main effect

seen for LOC on lucid dream recall, F(1, 11) = .330, p = .577, °Sp^i = .029. Participants who had an Internal LOC (M = 3.75, SD = 4.37) did not recall a significantly different number of lucid dreams from those who had an External LOC (M = 1.86, SD = 3.63). Lastly, there was no significant interaction between LOC and DRT on lucid dream recall,

F(1, 11) = .029, p = .868, °Sp^ = .003. Participants who were given DRT and who had an Internal LOC (M = 1.33, SD = 1.53) did not recall a significantly different number of lucid dreams than those who were given DRT and who had an External LOC (M = .50, SD = .58) (see Figure 1.1). Participants who were not given DRT and who had an Internal

LOC (M = 5.20, SD = 1.74) did not recall a significantly different number of lucid dreams than those who were not given DRT and who had an External LOC (M = 3.67, SD = 2.25) (see Figure 2.1)

Secondary Analyses

Religious beliefs were moderately and positively correlated with high Internal Locus of Control scores (Pearson’s r = .602, p = .017). Those who affiliated themselves with an organized religion had higher Internal LOC scores than those who said they were spiritual but not religious, or did not have any spiritual or religious beliefs. There was a strong positive correlation between the number of non-lucid dreams recalled per week as reported on the Baseline Questionnaire and the number of non-lucid dreams reported on the Dream Diaries (Pearson’s r = .720, p = .002). Higher numbers of non-lucid dreams reported by the questionnaires had higher numbers of non-lucid dreams reported on the Dream Diaries.

There was a moderate positive correlation between number of hours slept as reported on the Dream Diary and the number of non-lucid dreams per week prior to the study as recorded on the Baseline Questionnaire (Pearson’s r = .560, p = .03), so participants who reported sleeping longer during the study also reported having more non-lucid dreams prior to the study.

There was a moderately strong negative correlation between number of hours slept as recorded in the Dream Diary during the study and the number of non-lucid dreams recorded in the Dream Diary during the study (Pearson’s r = .627, p = .012). So participants who slept more during the study reported less non-lucid dreams during the study.

Discussion

The results did not support the first hypothesis regarding the influence of DRT on dream recall. There was no significant difference seen in the numbers of non-lucid or lucid dreams recalled between the group who received DRT and the group who did not receive DRT. The DRT program may have been ineffective because the training technique was created by the author during their first research study. The detailed instructions for the established techniques after which it was modeled, were not available to the researcher at the time of this study. Future researchers should obtain a copy of the established techniques’ instructions in order to accurately replicate or build upon prior successes. Another explanation for the lack of significance of the DRT could be faulty measures of pre-experimental lucid dreaming ability. The Baseline Questionnaire asked questions concerning non-lucid and lucid dream recall frequency prior to the study, but the questions were formatted in a way that did not differentiate between never having and rarely having a lucid dream prior to the study. This is an important difference because it is not known whether or not the lucid dreams reported in this study were the first ones the participants had ever experienced or if they were experiencing an increase in lucid dreaming.

The second hypothesis, regarding LOC’s relationship to dreaming, was also not supported by the results. There was no significant difference seen in number of non-lucid or lucid dreams recalled by participants with an Internal LOC versus an External LOC. This result could be due to inaccurate categorization of participants into Internal and External LOC groups. This instrument was outdated at the time of the study.

Unfortunately, no significant interaction was found either. The overall lack of significance may be credited in part to inadequate testing of the hypotheses because of an insufficient sample size which gave the study little statistical power. Also, a short (5 days) intervention period was used. An additional limitation of this research was the haphazardly chosen sample. This method was chosen for convenience due to time constraints placed on the study as it was conducted for an experimental psychology course during a short summer semester. The sample consisted only of family, friends, coworkers, and classmates of the author.

Interestingly, significant correlations were found. A positive correlation was discovered for religious beliefs and high Internal Locus of Control scores. Those who affiliated themselves with an organized religion had higher Internal LOC scores than those who said they were spiritual but not religious, or did not have any spiritual or religious beliefs.

This may be due to the widespread influence of Christianity in this region. Christians believe in free will; they believe they can accomplish anything with the power of God behind them, and they are not taught to believe in fate, luck, or chance. This explanation is obviously speculative since the demographic question did not ask which religious beliefs the participants held.

In addition, there was a positive correlation between number of non-lucid dreams per week prior to the study and number of hours slept during the study, so participants who reported having more non-lucid dreams prior to the study also slept more during the study. This correlation may relate to the increased ability to dream during REM sleep, and if one sleeps more often, they may have more opportunity to enter REM sleep. However, there was also a negative correlation between number of hours slept during the study and number of non-lucid dreams during the study, so participants who slept more during the study reported less non-lucid dreams during the study. This difference could be due to inaccurate reporting on the Baseline Questionnaire which asks about nightly and weekly dream recall averages in comparison to daily reporting on the Dream Diary. Another possibility is the lack of a deep enough sleep caused by additional stress that most students may have processed during the study due to taking shortened summer courses. Classes are longer and more frequent, workloads are more concentrated, and more late-night study sessions are not unusual.

Implications

Since the results of this study were not significant, implications for the future are centered on improving methodology. Samples should be chosen randomly, and sample sizes should be sufficient enough to adequately measure the hypotheses. Questions asking about lucid dream ability before participation in lucid dream research should be formatted in a way that differentiates between never having had a lucid dream and rarely having a lucid dream. These questions should be open-ended or have forced-choice single, whole numbers answers rather than multiple choice, rankings, or ranges. Measurement and data-collection tools should be up-to-date. For example, the LOC scale used in this study was outdated; there have been modifications made since its creation, and new, more valid and reliable scales have been developed. Future researchers who are interested in this personality variable in regards to lucid dreaming ability may opt to use the Shapiro Control Inventory. It was created in 1993 and has been identified as more valid and reliable than Rotter’s scale (Shapiro, et. al, 1993). Participants should be provided with DRT for a longer period of time in order to explore the optimal intervention period for teaching lucid dream induction as a skill. Further research into the relationship between religion and LOC should be conducted to identify which religions, if not all, are associated with high levels of LOC and why. Future hypotheses concerning DRT and LOC’s effects on dreaming may be supported if these improvements in methodology are made.

In conclusion, the current study proposed to support the idea that lucid dreaming is a skill that can be taught through a training program, and it planned to establish a link between the personality construct of locus of control and dreaming. No significant results were found. However, this pilot study was conducted not only to satisfy a course requirement, but also to identify methodological issues that could be remedied in future lucid dream induction studies to be conducted at the author’s university in upcoming semesters.

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References

Aumann, C., Lahl, O., & Pietrowsky, R. (2012). Relationship between dream structure, boundary structure and the Big Five personality dimensions. Dreaming, 22(2), 124-135. doi:10.1037/a0028977 Bulkeley, K. (2012). Dream recall and political ideology: Results of a demographic survey. Dreaming, 22(1), 1-9. doi:10.1037/a0026170 Cheng, C., Cheung, S., Chio, J., & Chan, M. (2012). Cultural Meaning of Perceived Control: A Meta-Analysis of Locus of Control and Psychological Symptoms Across 18 Cultural Regions. Psychological Bulletin,    doi:10.1037/a0028596

Davidson, J., & Lynch, S. (2012). Thematic, literal and associative dream imagery following a high-impact event. Dreaming, 22(1), 58-69. doi:    10.    1037 / a0026273

Hoekstra, S. J., Stos, A. N., Swendson, J. R., & Hoekstra, A. H. (2012). Racial bias in dream content. Dreaming, 22(1), 10-17. doi:    10.    1037 / a0026474

Jenkins, D. (2012). The nightmare and the narrative. Dreaming, 22(2), 101-114.    doi:10.1037/a0028426

Paulsson, T., & Parker, A. (2006).The Effects of a Two-Week Reflection-Intention Training Program on Lucid Dream Recall. Dreaming, 16(1), 22-35.    doi:10.1037/1053-0797.16.1.22

Reed, H. (1978). Improved dream recall associated with meditation.

Journal of Clinical    Psychology,    34(1),    150-156.

Rotter, J. B. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs: General And Applied,    80(1),    1-28.    doi:10.1037/h0092976

Sanchez, V. (1995).Setting up dreaming. The Teachings of Don Carlos: Practical Applications of the works of Carlos Castaneda (pp. 173-194). Santa Fe, NM:    Bear    &    Company    Publishing.

Shapiro, D., Potkin, S., Jin,Y., Brown, B., Carreon, D., & Wu, J. (1993). Measuring the psychological construct of control: Discriminant, divergent, and incremental validity of the Shapiro Control Inventory and Rotter’s and Wallstons’ Locus of Control Scales. International

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Staunton, H., & O'Rourke, K. (2012).The creation of a topographical world and its contents in the dreams of the congenitally blind. Dream ing, 22(1), 53-57. doi:10.1037/a0026690 Voss, U. (2011). Unlocking the Lucid Dream. Scientific American Mind, 22(5), 33-35.

Tables and Figures

Table 1

No. of Non-lucid &Lucid Dreams Recalled by Participants with an Internal or External LOC who received DRT

Table 2

No. of Non-lucid &Lucid Dreams Recalled by Participants with an Internal or External LOC who did not receive DRT

204

The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell

by John Rodden and John Rossi

Reviewed by Erica Even

Cambridge University Press, 2012.

146 pp.

$19.95 (paperback). ISBN 9780521132558.

John Rodden and John Rossi’s The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell examines the life and afterlife of George Orwell and the various genres within which he wrote while claiming that Orwell’s writings remain an important influence today. Rodden and Rossi suggest that although Orwell is most known for his satirical fiction works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, he was originally better known for his essays such as “Shooting an Elephant” and “A Hanging.” As they show, Orwell’s early career in traditional fiction was unsuccessful. For instance, Orwell’s Down and Out in Paris and London and A Clergyman’s Daughter show his use of highly developed characters but lack of fictive imagination, as he drew on his own experiences for these novels. However, Rodden and Rossi suggest that by the end of Orwell’s life he had become an esteemed satirist because he learned the art of writing; it was not a natural talent. His essays on nontraditional subjects helped to shape popular culture studies while his documentary journalism called for necessary social action. In one salient example, the Road to Wigan Pier explores the harsh and dangerous working conditions of miners, screaming for social reform. Orwell’s experiences in the mines, in Burma as an officer, and in the slums of Paris along with his political views against fascism helped to shape all of his writings no matter the genre.

The book begins with Orwell’s early life when he was born Eric

Arthur Blair, later to be changed to George Orwell. From the beginning of his life, Orwell rebelled against authority, especially at Eton where he went to school and felt like an outsider. Later, when he moved to Burma to join the Indian Imperial Police, he became even more disillusioned with authority after first-hand experiences of imperialism. His novel, Burmese Days and two essays, “A Hanging” and “Shooting and Elephant,” were produced as a result of his life in Burma. Upon his return to England, Orwell began to explore the turmoil of the lower class which is reflected in his novels, Down and Out in Paris and London and Road to Wigan Pier. Orwell also spent time in Spain during the Spanish Revolution, where he saw the horrors of war, on which he based Homage to Catalonia. Although, he had many publications, his claim to fame lies in his later works, Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which he presents the idea of a corrupt government and dystopian society. Both works became wildly popular, yet Orwell died shortly after Nineteen Eighty-Four was published. Although, Orwell never got to see his literary legacy, it continues to live on through widespread critical acclaim.

Rodden, an Orwell enthusiast, has written many books on George Orwell, including The Cambridge Companion to George Orwell of which Rossi was a coauthor. Although The Cambridge Introduction is brilliantly researched, drawing from many prominent scholars in literary studies, many of these scholars wrote chapters in The Cambridge Companion, leading me to believe that one book or the other would surely be enough for any introduction to George Orwell. Rodden even references The Cambridge Companion throughout this work. Quotations from other scholars are seemingly randomly placed throughout the text. Often times, there is no lead-in or warning whatsoever of the looming grey quotation box that nestles itself between paragraphs. These grey boxes seem to function as supplementary research which would make sense in a larger textbook complete with pictures, captions, and other interactive material; however, they hardly seem necessary in the case of this book.

The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell is organized by biographical information, literary works, and critical reception in which Rodden and

Rossi prove that Orwell’s reputation ranks highly next to contemporary authors. The information is presented clearly in easy to understand language; however, the sections could be reorganized to be less repetitive. Rodden and Rossi assert that Orwell’s life had a direct impact on his writing, which they show in both the biographical information section and the literary works section. However, these sections were at times redundant, and could have been effectively combined so that the quotations and ideas would not be presented doubly and would enhance the overall argument of the book. By page thirty-one—the first page of chapter 2—George Orwell’s idea that a writer must produce “enormous naturalistic novels with unhappy endings” has already been repeated three times (1, 13, 31). The authors provide a chronological timeline in the beginning of the book; however, in the literary works section the works are organized by genres and in these genres the works are not in chronological order, but instead in a seemingly random fashion. Although the book can be repetitive, it serves its purpose to inform the reader about Orwell’s works during his lifetime and beyond.

Just as The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell does provide wonderful insights into the life and works of Orwell, it also provides insights into Rodden’s obsession with Orwell. The subsection, “If Orwell were alive today . . .” is a brilliant example of Rodden’s worshipful tone toward Orwell: “. . . he is more ‘alive’ than countless persons who are still living . . .” (110). George Orwell was a brilliant-minded author and satirist, but can we really go as far as to refer to him as “Saint George” as Rodden and Rossi do?

The Cambridge Introduction to George Orwell would best be suited for any course that plans to include a somewhat in-depth study into the life and works of George Orwell at the high school or college level. The book itself is a quick and easy read and would be beneficial for research projects on or related to George Orwell or his works. I would also recommend it to anyone who has a love for the works of George Orwell with a desire to learn more about the impact of his life and views in his work.

I would not recommend this book to someone who already has The Cambridge Companion as it would seemingly have similar content.

mnino

209

Witches, Wife Beaters, & Whores Common Law and Common Folk in Early America

by Elaine Forman Crane Reviewed by Megan Shelton

Cornell University Press, 2011.

278 pp. notes. index.

$22.95 (paperback). ISBN 9780801477416.

Elaine Forman Crane’s book takes a look at how early American legal culture was heavily influenced by ordinary people. By using cases of slander, witchcraft, domestic violence, attempted rape, murder, and the abuse of illegitimate children’s rights, she shows how these trials helped to create the law and establish the earliest societal norms and values of a country in its infancy. This book uses microhistory to make the reader aware of average people who create history (3). Crane’s narrow focus on microhistory reveals many aspects of a larger culture that most studies overlook (2). By looking at the legal culture of this period through the lens of microhistory, Crane demonstrates how common laws affected everyday life. In Witches, Wife Beaters, & Whores, we see how ordinary people created law by establishing and enforcing informal rules of conduct and how they formed a link between law and fundamental values (8).

Crane provides the reader with many examples of specific cases that helped to shape early American legal culture. In one section, Crane provides three examples of domestic violence where the abused ended up dead and the abuser was let off with minimal punishment. Domestic violence was a very public concern during this era; friends and neighbors would often see it as their responsibility to get involved and help end

the abuse. Because none of the women discussed in this section sought help from friends and neighbors and instead tried to keep their abuse a secret, they had no one to testify in court on their behalf (117). Their husbands were able to destroy any evidence, and the courts looked the other way. Because these women kept their abuse a secret, their husbands were able to use the lack of witnesses to manipulate the situation and shape the legal culture for domestic violence. Crane also tells the tale of Samuel Banister, a man who could no longer afford his home and went so far as to shoot the officer who came to remove him from the property he refused to leave. However, seeing as the officer fell and broke his back as a result of being shot, and it was the fall and not the actual shot that ended his life, Banister was acquitted of the charges and only had to pay all the legal fees as punishment. By providing the example of Samuel Banister getting away with murder, Crane again illustrates how ordinary people were able to influence the law.

The final, and most interesting section of the book, provides an example of how ghosts were often used to testify in court when someone wanted something that could not be proven with actual facts to go in their favor. Thomas Harris had expressed to his loved ones before his passing that he wanted his land to be left to his children. However, because his children were illegitimate and he left no will, the law stated it went to his closest relative. A friend of his claimed to have spoken with his ghost and the ghost told him his will, which was evidence enough for the court. Crane’s many examples provide the reader with a decent understanding of how the legal system worked early on. By presenting the reader with specific cases, she is able to show through witch trials and ghost stories how superstition often trumped logic. She also shows how the legal system favored men and often pardoned them even in extreme instances by depicting the cases of Samuel Banister and three abusive husbands, all guilty of murder, but all only given minimal punishments.

Rather than showing how the American legal system transitioned from the primitive one of this time to the one in use today, she merely provides examples of how it was then and leaves it at that. Although these unique accounts were interesting to read, the reader would benefit from also being provided with some of the aspects that made the law shift over time to what it is now. She states throughout the book that cases of microhistory such as these helped to shape the legal system we have now, but she never states how. She provides examples of the earliest cases, but the book would have been strengthened by providing some from in-between then and now to illustrate this transition.

Crane’s book shows how early Americans personalized the law and it was their acceptance of the same values that brought so many diverse immigrants to a common culture. The legal history of this era provides a general interpretation of early American life which is represented by the many microhistorical accounts in this book that demonstrate the relationship between people and the law. The examples provided in Crane’s book are all great examples of how the values of the early Americans became deeply implanted in their culture. She provides the reader with a basic understanding of how their society worked by providing many examples of how their society’s common values and norms affected their everyday lives, causing many to live in fear. Although the book fails to portray exactly how the legal culture of this era shaped today’s legal culture, it provides several accounts of many aspects of the settlers’ everyday lives and provides the reader with examples of many details of early American culture.

mnino

Valdosta State University

A Regional University of the University System of Georgia & an Equal Opportunity Institution.

www.valdosta.edu