Tracing an American Yoga: Identity and Cross-Cultural Transaction

This dissertation looks at the creative identity of an American yoga, both rooted in its Indic origins and radically transformed in its U.S. manifestations. It traces the broad historical transactions of yoga in terms of East and West, Secular and Religious, authenticity and idealized conception, as well as provides a critical historical genealogy of Anusara and Sridaiva yoga. Furthermore, the project relates yoga to the identity, power, and knowledge dynamics of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern histories and interpretations of yoga and Tantra, multiple theoretical discourses, and the embodied practices of individuals within Indian and American contexts. I argue that there is a unique and polysemous yogic identity in America, and that this identity has developed from a messy process of transaction between Indian and Western modes of being and knowing. Furthermore, the current Americanized culture of yoga brings along with it narratives of specific value. American yoga displays a particularly consumptive quality of yogic lifestyle that reflects a cultural atmosphere of reinvention and a merging of profit and personal purpose. American yoga’s identity today is entrepreneurial, branded, business oriented, and marketed for consumption. This dissertation shows how the American yogic identity is in flux, continuously fracturing and multiplying into various and novel understandings that relate to yoga’s past and to the market value for today’s American consumer. It examines the moving nature of yoga in the American landscape as what Jared Farmer calls a “center of creativity” and as a display of excess and choice. The discussion of yoga is further located in John Friend’s styles of yoga and/or lifestyle practices, Anusara and Sridaiva, as they both redefine and further remove yoga from established Indian markers of identity. My locations as American yogi, as comparativist, as ethnographer, and as a Bachelor of Science in Advertising and Marketing also situate this analysis.

Evaluation of hybrid and distance education learning environments in Spain

This article describes the adaptation and validation of the Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (DELES) for use in investigating the qualities found in distance and hybrid education psycho-social learning environments in Spain. As Europe moves toward post-secondary student mobility, equanimity in access to higher education, and more standardised degree programs across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) the need for a high quality method for continually assessing the excellence of distance and hybrid learning environments has arisen. This study outlines how the English language DELES was adapted into the new Spanish-Distance Education Learning Environments Survey (S-DELES) for use with a Bachelor of Psychology and Criminology degree program offering both distance and hybrid education classes. We present the relationships between psycho-social learning environment perceptions and those of student affect. We also present the asynchronous aspects of the environment, scale means, and a comparison between the perceptions of distance education students and their hybrid education counterparts that inform the university about the baseline health of the information and communication technologies (ICT) environment within which the study was conducted.

Motivaciones para el acceso a los estudios de comunicación en relación a los hábitos de consumo y las referencias mediáticas

Los objetivos de este trabajo, que constituye uno de los últimos resultados de la investigación desarrollada a partir de la Summer Media School de la Fundación FIDES y la UFV (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria), son: conocer mejor el perfil de acceso de los estudiantes de los Grados en Comunicación en la Universidades de la Comunidad de Madrid (Periodismo, Comunicación Audiovisual o Publicidad y Relaciones Públicas) y determinar cuál es su motivación a la hora de iniciarlos, sobre todo, teniendo en cuenta el momento clave de crisis que vive el sector. Además, se trata de averiguar cuál es su relación con los medios de comunicación; establecer dónde encuentran sus referentes profesionales y averiguar cómo es su consumo y su competencia mediática actual como parte de la audiencia de los medios y como futuros comunicadores que ayudarán a formar un colectivo social más crítico y participativo. La metodología se ha basado en la utilización de un cuestionario cuya evolución ha ido de las 34 preguntas iniciales en 2010, a las 46 de 2013, con multirespuesta, sobre una muestra sólida de los estudiantes que se matricularán en la Comunidad de Madrid en algún Grado en Comunicación.

Urban Planning 1: Topics and Debates

The texts collected are a sample of the topics for study and debate that have been part of the Urban Planning 1 subject in the second year of the Bachelor Degree in Architecture during the academic year 2014-2015. These notes have been prepared by students as part of exercises of debate and presentation. The main aim of these exercises is to raise different questions about topics that have formed part of the discipline of Urban Studies for years. Items and articles which have been used for the discussion and preparation of presentations are some of those collected in the book "The city reader". Stout, F (2003) The city reader. Urban Reader Series. Routledge. London and New York.

No evolution but revolution: The future of the Dutch terraced house

Dealing with the environmental problems is one of the biggest challenges within the field of architectural technology. Solutions to this problem are mostly exclusively sought in materials and computer technology. However, far more attention should be paid to humans and their role in this problem. This paper presents a small part of our bachelor thesis, which started as an investigation on the Dutch terraced house and through research ended as a study on the human behaviour and motivation. The first part of this paper, the evolution, is focussed on the traditional way of problem solving. The second part, the revolution, is focussed on human behaviour and motivation. These two studies put together lead to our conclusion: The only way to structurally solve our environmental problem is to revolutionize our way of building by involving the human interaction into our solution instead of forcing it out.

George Alcock, AB, 1673

This folder contains an original (10.5 x 5.75 in.) and two photographic copies (12.5 x 9 in., 10 x 5.25 in.) of the diploma of George Alcock. This is the earliest known diploma to exist at Harvard. Alcock received his Bachelor of Arts in 1673 but did not receive his diploma until 1676. The diploma is dated April 19, 1676.

James Halsey, AB, 1737

This folder contains an original diploma (10.25 x 8.75 in.) and a photostat (10.5 x 9 in.).

Benjamin Wood, AB, 1797

This folder contains an original (20.5 x 12 in.), a typewritten copy (14.75 x 8.5 in.), and a photostat copy (21.5 x 13.75 in.) of the diploma of Benjamin Wood.

Thomas Oliver Selfridge, AB, 1797

This diploma is unsigned by college officers and lacks the Harvard seal.