Scott Joplin: Treemonisha

Scott Joplin’s (1867–1917) opera Treemonisha is the only opera in existence about the Reconstruction era African-American experience written by a black man who actually lived through it. This fact alone makes the opera a work of tremendous significance. Further, Joplin’s music is profoundly expressive and as stylistically unique as anything ever created in America. Through his score and libretto, Joplin vividly documented a culture that has left us few other artifacts: The echoes of the “field hollers,” spirituals, fiddle tunes, revival hymns, and ancient African dances of his rural childhood are all heard, along with the dialects of his people rising up from slavery. Yet for all of its obvious significance, Treemonisha has been a deeply misunderstood work. The opera was complex and virtually unprecedented, two reasons why 1910s America could not embrace it. And tragically, Joplin's original 1911 materials for the opera were almost entirely destroyed in the early 1960s. In the early 1970s several attempts were made to reconstruct it, but for the most part these were not concerned with the opera’s cultural origins or historic authenticity. But now, on the centennial of this extraordinary creation, comes this new recording of a completely authentic reconstruction of Treemonisha by Rick Benjamin, based on eighteen years of research.

Climate Change Adaptation Tool for Transportation: Mid-Atlantic Region Case Study

Transportation has contributed to climate change and will most likely be impacted by changes in sea level, temperature, precipitation, and wind, for example. As the risk of climate change impacts become more imminent, pressure for adaptation within transportation agencies to address these impacts continues to rise. The most logical strategy is to integrate consideration of adaptation projects into the long-range transportation planning (LRTP) process. To do this, tools and experience are needed to assist transportation agencies. The Climate Change Adaptation Tool for Transportation (CCATT) is a step-by-step method to evaluate climate change scenarios and impacts, inventory at-risk existing and proposed infrastructure, and assess mitigation practices to identify supporting adaptation efforts. This paper focuses on the application of CCATT to the Mid-Atlantic region using a case study on the Wilmington Area Planning Council (WILMAPCO), the Metropolitan Planning Organization for northern Delaware. The results of the application and case study demonstrate the importance of climate change adaptation practices in long-range transportation planning. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)TE.1943-5436.0000515. (C) 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Something is Missing from 124": Confronting Postmodern Absences in Toni Morrison's Beloved"

My thesis is divided into three chapters that build on one another as they show different examples of absences in the historical setting of Beloved and how the characters try to find creative uses of language to overcome them. As I argue that language plays animportant role in a search for meaning, my first chapter is about specific absences of language in Beloved. My second chapter is about the many absent characters in Beloved, such as Baby Suggs' children and husband, Halle, Howard and Buglar. In my third chapter, I analyze entities that are either missing from the text, or which represent a loss to Baby Suggs, Sethe, and Denver