Archive: 2011
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Negotiation processes: EU negotiations toward the Greek bailout in the context of the boundaries of the EU legal framework
Abstract:
This paper examines the negotiations that took place in the European Union (EU) toward the joint financial program for Greece, also known as “the Greek bailout.” The paper analyses what type of negotiation behavior was enacted by various actors involved and the boundaries of the institutional and legal framework in which these negotiations took place. The paper argues that bargaining behavior was expected due to the type of policies discussed and the high politicization of the problem, but that nonetheless problem-solving behavior was prevalent. The actors of the euro zone all wanted to solve the problem in order to prevent damage to the shared euro currency. The framework within which these negotiations took place was not sufficient for the EU to deal with the sovereign defaults of several countries facing financial issues. Subsequently, due to euro zone countries’ fears of the spill-over effect, the EU created a new mechanism for future cases: the European Financial Stabilization Mechanism (EFSM) and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) (Sibert 2010a). -
Fwd: Modern Poem
Abstract:
This paper analyzes the cultural and linguistic mix of Arabic and English in an unusual anonymous poem that uses both languages simultaneously to create the final product. I conduct a visual and verbal analysis of this contrast to explore questions like: What is the significance of language juxtaposition? What are the connotations inherent within the poem dealing with both languages as separate and joint entities? What are the cultural implications in relation to language and identity issues between English and Arabic and their implications as Aranglish? This paper examines insights into the spreading popularity of code-switching for the new generations of bilinguals. Like Spanglish and other languages mixes, Aranglish is highly popular in the youth culture but there are specific differences that make Aranglish unique. In addition, the paper discusses the linguistic and cultural differences of each language using theorists like Goffman, Hopper and Whorf and how these form a new “emergent” language for exploration. -
Contemporary Coon Songs and Neo-Minstrels: Auto-Tune the News, Antoine Dodson, and the "Bed Intruder Song"
Abstract:
Coon songs and minstrel shows were at the peak of their popularity in the late-nineteenth century. Blackface minstrelsy and coon songs have since fallen out of factor in the United States, and are now looked up on with disdain and embarrassment. In this essay, I argue that the racial structures of the traditional coon song are updated and reiterated through the “Bed Intruder Song,” mirroring the historical constructions of blackface minstrelsy and coon songs in the early twentieth century. This essay outlines a historical overview of coon songs and how these structures relate to Antoine Dodson, the Gregory Brothers and the American audience’s reception of the “Bed Intruder Song.” By analyzing the “Bed Intruder Song” and online media’s reception of the video, this essay aims to illustrate how, in our “post-racial” moment, we’re not so colorblind. -
Making Dead Bodies Legible: Facebook's Ghosts, Public Bodies and Networked Grief
Abstract:
This article charts a tenable middle route between critical theory and cognitive science in making a case for the distribution of emotions across digital networks. Specifically, I examine Facebook’s memorial policy and application as a cultural embodiment of public grief. To support this assertion, I look to cognitive scientist Andy Clark’s extended-mind model as a way of negotiating a more holistic approach to Freud’s theories of exchange and incorporation. Facebook, in this regard, emerges as a material rhetoric, one that compels users to participate in public acts of feeling.
“I’m being blunt, but the corporeality of the human body is, finally, a blunt matter”
-Richard Miller, “The Nervous System” (1996)
“The dwelling, this place where they dwell permanently, marks this institutional passage from the private to the public, which does not always mean from the secret to the nonsecret”
-Jacques Derrida, Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression (1995)