October 2012: Volume 2 Issue 1

In this Issue: Friends of Dacus Endowment Nears GoalDacus Library of Winthrop UniversityMedieval Manuscripts Acquired; Carlisle Recognized by Friends

December 2014: Volume 4 Issue 1

Inside this Issue: DigitalCommons. Winthrop.eduFriends Support ContinuesGrants and Funding OpportunitiesFriends Indeed Profile ...

April 2014: Volume 3 Issue 2

In this Issue: Here Comes the Sun Dacus Library of Winthrop University Friends, Scholarship, and Retirement ...

Sexual blinging of women : Alice Walker's african character tashi and issue of female genital cutting

This thesis provides a reading of the different forms of representation that can be attributed to the character Tashi, the protagonist of the novel Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992), written by the African American writer Alice Walker. Before this work Tashi had already appeared in two previous novels by Walker, first, in The Color Purple (1982) and then, as a mention, in The Temple of My Familiar (1989). With Tashi, the author introduces the issue of female circumcision, a ritual Tashi submits herself to at the beginning of her adult life. The focus of observation lies in the ways in which the author’s anger is transformed into a means of creative representation. Walker uses her novel Possessing the Secret of Joy openly as a political instrument so that the expression “female mutilation” (term used by the author) receives ample attention from the media and critics in general. The aim of this investigation is to evaluate to what extent Walker’s social engagement contributes to the development of her work and to what extent it undermines it. For the analysis of the different issues related to “female genital cutting”, the term I use in this thesis, the works of feminist critics and writers such as Ellen Gruenbaum, Lightfoot-Klein, Nancy Hartsock, Linda Nicholson, Efrat Tseëlon and the Egyptian writer and doctor Nawal El Saadawi will be consulted. I hope that this thesis can contribute as an observation about Alice Walker’s use of her social engagement in the creation of her fictional world.

A comparative study on the "American innocence" issue : Henry Jame's The American and Daisy Miller : a study

Esta dissertação aborda a questão da “inocência americana” em duas obras do escritor norte-americano Henry James, empregando conceitos da Literatura Comparada como base para a análise dos textos escolhidos: The American e Daisy Miller: A Study. Portanto, os conceitos de intertextualidade, influência e alteridade são fundamentais para o estabelecimento das confluências e divergências entre as duas obras. Este trabalho também apresenta uma análise, com base na teoria comparatista da interdisciplinaridade, entre a obra literária Daisy Miller: A Study e o filme Daisy Miller, dirigido por Peter Bogdanovich. O tema recorrente nas obras analisadas, o da “inocência americana”, foi abordado por Henry James em grande parte de sua produção literária, sendo um reflexo de sua própria experiência como o “outro”, bem como de suas observações sobre seus compatriotas, quando confrontados com os valores e tradições vigentes na Europa, no século XIX. James alcançou seu merecido lugar no cânone literário ocidental, graças ao seu estilo incomparável, o qual foi aperfeiçoando durante toda sua carreira e até hoje é parâmetro para escritores contemporâneos.

A model of private bank-note issue

A random-matching model (ofmoney) is formulated in which there is complete public knowledge of the trading histories of a subset of the population, called the banking sector, and no public knowledge of the trading histories of the complement of that subset, called the non bank sector. Each person, whether a banker or a non banker, is assumed to have the technological capability to create indivisible and durable objects called notes. If outside money is indivisible and sufficiently scarce, then the optimal mechanism is shown to have note issue and note destruction (redemption) by members of the banking sector.

Are the antiglobalizers right?: the issue of trade without a Walrasian auctioneer

This paper analyzes the determinants of expectational coordination on the perfect foresight equilibrium of an open economy in the class of one-dimensional models where the price is determined by price expectations. In this class of models, we relate autarky expectational stability conditions to regional integration ones, providing an intuitive open economy interpretation ofthe elasticities condition obtained by Guesnerie [11]. There, we show that the degree of structural heterogeneity trades-off the existence of standard efficiency gains -due to the increase in competition (spatial price stabilization)- and coordination upon the welfare enhancing free-trade equilibrium (stabilizing price expectations). This trade-off provides a new rationale for an exogenous price intervention at the international levei. Through the coordinational concern of the authority, trading countries are ab]e to fully reap the bene:fits from trade. We illustrate this point showing that classical measures evaluating ex-ante the desirability of economic integration (net welfare gains) do not always advise integration between two expectationally stable economies.

Play behaviour in nonhuman animals and the animal welfare issue

The mission of defining animal welfare indicators is methodologically difficult, limited, and possibly impossible. A promising alternative, however, to evaluate suitable environmental conditions is the assessment of play behaviour. In the present review, we summarise the general aspects of play behaviour in nonhuman animals and propose its use as a potential indicator of animal welfare. Play behaviour probably occurs in most vertebrates and some invertebrates, but predominately in mammals. It is also more frequent in young males and is associated with the environmental context in which animals find themselves. Animals play if they are healthy and well-fed, but not if they are under stressful conditions or if they are in a stressful state. We can therefore use the prevalence of play behaviour as an indicator of suitable environmental conditions, considering the specificity associated with the above-mentioned modifying factors.

Introduction to Focus Issue: Statistical mechanics and billiard-type dynamical systems

Dynamical systems of the billiard type are of fundamental importance for the description of numerous phenomena observed in many different fields of research, including statistical mechanics, Hamiltonian dynamics, nonlinear physics, and many others. This Focus Issue presents the recent progress in this area with contributions from the mathematical as well as physical stand point. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4730155]