Samurai Son and Exploring Cultural Myths Through Fantasy Fiction

Samurai Son is a story that captures the beauty, wonder and imagination of Japanese legends and mythology with some modern-day sensibilities and morals against the backdrop of medieval Japan. The story blends Shinto religion and stories about the tengu, bird-like wind spirits with a modern plotline in a Japanese fantasy universe. This world is filled with magic, demons, kami (magical spirits), gods and goddesses, samurai, ninja and martial arts.

Our Lady of Guadalupe : contemporary explorations of personal and cultural identity

Since it first appeared, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe has remained relatively unchanged. In the last thirty-five years, however, this has been changing. Artists are creating new variations of the icon to represent and express their reinterpretations. In some of these more contemporary images, the figure of Guadalupe has changed dramatically, but still retains enough traditional elements to be easily recognizable. Some of these images have been received with mixed results and have even sparked major controversy. These new, and sometimes controversial depictions of Guadalupe, specifically those created by Ester Hernández, Yolanda M. López and Alma López, will be explored here. Although each artist has her own individual motivations and intentions, all of the images presented here explore personal and cultural identity, as well as seek in some way to honor ordinary, human women through the sacred iconography of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Symbol for a Community: The Dickens Opera House and Theaters of the American West

This paper reveals the importance of the Dickens Opera House to the local history of Longmont, Colorado. Through an exploration of pioneer history and of architectural patronage and audience accommodation, this paper illustrates how the Dickens Opera House participated in the construction of cultural identity and civic aspirations of the city of Longmont. Using the Tabor Opera House of Leadville and Wright Opera House of Ouray as framing examples to place the Dickens Opera House within its proper architectural and historical context, I approach the building’s inception, construction, and early years as a way to track the early civic identity of a community through a work of architecture. The Dickens Opera House provided a point for the citizens of Longmont to focus their hopes of success and respectability in a newly formed community. An opera house provided a high-class perception of a town that provided a projection of respectability. Such a construction was built from various sources – the architecture of the building, simply calling the building an ‘opera house’, furnishings in the latest fashions and equipment of the latest technology, and extravagant scenery and curtains. In addition to these outward projections, opera houses also provided a place for community events. It was the location in town that brought people together.

Russia's Clandestine War against the United States: The Resurrection of the KGB and Russian Organized Crime Post 9/11

As American leadership has narrowly focused on fighting global terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, the modern version of the KGB, now known as the FSB, has been conducting continuous clandestine warfare operations against the United States. These warfare operations include strategic economic and political partnerships with anti-American entities worldwide and direct embedding of double agents in the US intelligence community. This paper investigates the role of Russia's cultural history leading to the merger of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and Russian Organized Crime (ROC). This paper concludes that the FSB is the most pervasive security threat to the United States and that employing Russian native and heritage speakers of Russian in the US intelligence community compromises US national security.