Ecohumanists. Protection of physical ecology demands respect human ecology

What is the human being? Which is its origin and its end? What is the influence of the nature in the man and what is his impact on nature? Forthe animalists, men are like other animals; freedom and rationality are not signs of superiority, nor having rights over the animals. For the ecohumanists, human beings are part of nature, but is qualitatively different and superior to animals; and is the creator of the civilization. We analyze these two ecological looks. A special point is the contribution ofecohumanists -from the first half of the Renaissance, who dealt in extenso the dignity and freedom of the human being-, of Michelangelo and finally, of Mozart, through his four insurmountable operas, which display the difficulty of physical ecology to engender so much beauty, so much wealth, so much love for the creatures and so much variety.

La fictohistoria o historiografía imaginaria en las literaturas románicas desde el siglo XIX: ensayo de tipología y panorama de un género formal insospechado (II)

El doble aspecto documental y artístico de la escritura de la historia ha quedado prácticamente oculto por la insistencia en el carácter científico de la disciplina y su expulsión subsiguiente del canon literario desde el siglo XIX. El cultivo de la historiografía ficticia o imaginaria (fictohistoria) surgió entonces como un modo de salvar la literariedad de la historia, en su calidad de género formal, mediante el uso del discurso historiográfico como procedimiento retórico para conseguir un efecto de historicidad en textos que son, no obstante, claramente ficticios, y que tienen a menudo un carácter satírico o admonitorio. Esto no está reñido con el hecho de que la mayoría manifieste en primer lugar una reflexión sobre el devenir de la humanidad, es decir, sobre la Historia. Los ejemplos de este género son relativamente abundantes y se pueden clasificar en varias categorías temáticas. Esta segunda parte del estudio se centra en la historia prospectiva.

Piscolabis (‘snack’): etymological proposals, variations and entries

This article focuses on the study of the word piscolabis. A review of the possible etymological origins put forward in the relevant literature is first presented. This evinces that the difficulties to offer one single (and safe) etymology probably stem from the lack of documents that record the word under study and that date back to the time when it was first used. This historical account also shows that piscolabis has had different variant forms before and after the dictionary of the Spanish Academy (DRAE) established the current one. Finally, the semantic development that the word has undergone is also provided, which allows us to question the suitability of the entry the word has been assigned in the current edition of the DRAE.

Who is in charge? An L2 Discourse Intonation Study on Four Prosodic Parameters to Exert the Pragmatic Function of Dominance and Control in the Context of L2 Non-specialist Public Speaking

This paper reports the findings from a study of the learning of English intonation by Spanish speakers within the discourse mode of L2 oral presentation. The purpose of this experiment is, firstly, to compare four prosodic parameters before and after an L2 discourse intonation training programme and, secondly, to confirm whether subjects, after the aforementioned L2 discourse intonation training, are able to match the form of these four prosodic parameters to the discourse-pragmatic function of dominance and control. The study designed the instructions and tasks to create the oral and written corpora and Brazil’s Pronunciation for Advanced Learners of English was adapted for the pedagogical aims of the present study. The learners’ pre- and post-tasks were acoustically analysed and a pre / post- questionnaire design was applied to interpret the acoustic analysis. Results indicate most of the subjects acquired a wider choice of the four prosodic parameters partly due to the prosodically-annotated transcripts that were developed throughout the L2 discourse intonation course. Conversely, qualitative and quantitative data reveal most subjects failed to match the forms to their appropriate pragmatic functions to express dominance and control in an L2 oral presentation.

Creep and Shrinkage Properties of Lightweight Concrete Used in the State of Iowa, HR-136, Phase I, 1968

In February of 1968 a cooperative research project by the Iowa State Highway Commission (Project No. HR-136) and the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa was initiated in order to determine experimentally the creep and shrinkage characteristics of lightweight-aggregate concrete used in the State of Iowa. This report is concerned with Phase 1 of the Project as described in the Prospectus for the project submitted in November of 1967: "The State Highway Commission is planning to conduct pilot studies in prestressed-lightweight structures fabricated with materials that are proposed for use in bridge structures in the near future. Thus, Phase will have as its immediate objective, investigating the materials to be used in the above mentioned pilot studies.” (1) The work described in this report was also carried out in conjunction with a second cooperative project: "Time-Dependent Camber and Deflection of Non-Composite and Composite Lightweight-Prestressed Concrete Beams" (Project No. HR-137).

ASSESSING THE LEVEL OF TECHNOLOGY INTEGRATION OF TITLE I TEACHERS IN A LARGE URBAN SCHOOL DISTRICT

By law, Title I schools employ teachers who are both competent in their subject knowledge and State certified. In addition, Title I teachers receive ongoing professional development in technology integration and are equipped with the latest innovative resources to integrate technology in the classroom. The aim is higher academic achievement and the effective use of technology in the classroom. The investment to implement technology in this large urban school district to improve student achievement has continued to increase. In order to infuse current and emerging technology throughout the curriculum, this school district needs to know where teachers have, and have not, integrated technology. Yet the level of how technology is integrated in Title I schools is unknown. This study used the Digital-Age Survey Levels of Teaching Innovation (LoTi) to assess 508 Title I teachers’ technology integration levels using three major initiatives purchased by Title I— the iPads program, the Chromebook initiative, and the interactive whiteboards program. The study used a quantitative approach. Descriptive statistics, regression analysis, and statistical correlations were used to examine the relationship between the level of technology integration and the following dependent variables: personal computer use (PCU), current instructional practices (CIP), and levels of teaching innovation (LoTi). With this information, budgetary decisions and professional development can be tailored to the meet the technology implementation needs of this district. The result of this study determined a significant relationship between the level of teaching innovation, personal computer use, and current instructional practices with teachers who teach with iPad, Chromebook, and/or interactive whiteboard. There was an increase in LoTi, PCU, and CIP scores with increasing years of experience of Title I teachers. There was also a significant relationship between teachers with 20 years or more teaching experience and their LoTi score.

King of the Renaissance: Art and Politics at the Neapolitan Court of Ferrante I, 1458-1494

In the second half of the fifteenth century, King Ferrante I of Naples (r. 1458-1494) dominated the political and cultural life of the Mediterranean world. His court was home to artists, writers, musicians, and ambassadors from England to Egypt and everywhere in between. Yet, despite its historical importance, Ferrante’s court has been neglected in the scholarship. This dissertation provides a long-overdue analysis of Ferrante’s artistic patronage and attempts to explicate the king’s specific role in the process of art production at the Neapolitan court, as well as the experiences of artists employed therein. By situating Ferrante and the material culture of his court within the broader discourse of Early Modern art history for the first time, my project broadens our understanding of the function of art in Early Modern Europe. I demonstrate that, contrary to traditional assumptions, King Ferrante was a sophisticated patron of the visual arts whose political circumstances and shifting alliances were the most influential factors contributing to his artistic patronage. Unlike his father, Alfonso the Magnanimous, whose court was dominated by artists and courtiers from Spain, France, and elsewhere, Ferrante differentiated himself as a truly Neapolitan king. Yet Ferrante’s court was by no means provincial. His residence, the Castel Nuovo in Naples, became the physical embodiment of his commercial and political network, revealing the accretion of local and foreign visual vocabularies that characterizes Neapolitan visual culture.

An exploration of parent ivolvement in Response to Intervention (RTI) in Title I schools

Research demonstrates that parental involvement positively impacts student achievement and enhances targeted instruction. Notably, however, little research currently exists on how schools involve parents in Response to Intervention (RTI), a framework for implementing targeted, tiered, research-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to interview selected parents, teachers, RTI specialists, and principals in three Title I elementary schools in one school district, plus one district-level administrator, in order to examine how elementary schools currently involve parents in RTI prereferral interventions, and to understand the factors that might facilitate or challenge such parent involvement. I employed a comparative case study qualitative design with each elementary school as the main unit of analysis. I conducted individual, in-depth interviews that lasted approximately 45-60 minutes with a total of 33 participants across the three school sites, including 11 parents, 12 teachers, and six RTI specialists, three principals, and one district-level administrator. I also analyzed documents related to RTI processes that are available through websites and participants. I used Strauss and Corbin’s (1998) three-step scheme for thematic/grounded theory analysis, and Atlas.ti as the electronic tool for management and analysis. Analyses of the data revealed that personnel across the sites largely agreed on how they explain RTI to parents and notify parents of student progress. Parents mostly disagreed with these accounts, stating instead that they learn about RTI and their child’s progress by approaching teachers or their own children with questions, or by examining report cards and student work that comes home. Personnel and parents cited various challenges for involving parents in RTI. However, they all also agreed that teachers are accessible and willing to reach out to parents, and that teachers already face considerable workloads. It appears that no district- or school-wide plan guides parent involvement practices in RTI at any of the three schools. Finally, I present a discussion of findings; implications for teachers, RTI implementation leaders, and Title school leaders; study limitations; and possibilities for future research.

A Feminist Affective Turn for Public Relations: Mothers, Passionate Publics, and the Childhood Vaccine Debate

This project proposes a feminist intervention in how affect and publics are theorized in public relations research. Drawing from extant literature, I argue that public relations theories of affect and publics have been apolitical and lack depth and context (Leitch & Motion, 2010a). Using the context of the online childhood vaccine debate, I illustrate several theories and concepts of the new feminist affective turn, as well as postmodern theories of affect, relevant to public relations research: (a) Public Feelings, “ugly” feelings, agency, and community (Cvetkovich, 2012; Ngai, 2007); (b) passionate politics (Mouffe, 2014); (c) postmodern assemblages, biopower, and body politics (Deleuze & Guattari, 1988; Foucault, 1984); (d) affective facts and logics of future threats (Massumi, 2010); and (e) affective ethics (Bertleson & Murphie, 2010). Scholarship in the areas of public relations, risk, feminist and postmodern affect theory, and the vaccine debate provided theoretical grounding for this project. My research questions asked: How is feminist affect theory embodied by mothers in the vaccine debate? How do mothers understand risks as affective facts in the vaccine debate (if at all)? What affective logics are used by mothers in the vaccine debate (if any)? And, What are sources of knowledge for mothers in the vaccine debate? Multi-sited online ethnographic methods were used to explore how feminist affect theory contributes to public relations research, including 29 one-on-one in-depth interviews with mothers of young children and participant observation of 15 online discussions about vaccines on parenting websites BabyCenter.com, TheBump.com, and WhatToExpect.com. I used snowball sampling to recruit interview participants and grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to analyze interview and online data. Results show that feminist affect theory contributes to theoretical and practical knowledge in public relations by politicizing and contextualizing understandings of publics and elucidating how affective facts and logics inform publics’ knowledge and choices, specifically in the context of risk. I also found evidence of suppression of dissent (Martin, 2015) and academic bias in vaccine debate research, which resulted in cultures of silence. Further areas of study included how specific contexts such as motherhood and issues of privilege and access affect publics’ experiences, knowledges, and choices.

Convenio Marco de Cooperación entre la Universitat Rovira I Virgili y la Universidad de Cuenca

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Les retraductions françaises d'Al Moqqadima d'Ibn Khaldoun : étude paratextuelle des retraductions de Vincent-Mansour Monteil (1967) et d’Abdesselam Cheddadi (2002)

Ce mémoire porte sur les retraductions françaises du XXe siècle d’Al Moqaddima (Les Prolégomènes) (1377) d’Ibn Khaldoun, un traité historique et philosophique du XIVe siècle. La première traduction française, Les Prolégomènes, est réalisée par De Slane entre 1840 et 1863. Elle est suivie de deux retraductions, à savoir Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1967- 1968) réalisée par Vincent-Mansour Monteil, et Le Livre des Exemples I : Autobiographie, La Muqaddima (2002) réalisée par Abdesselam Cheddadi. L’objet de ce mémoire est de mener une analyse contextuelle, paratextuelle et discursive de ces deux retraductions de l’œuvre monumentale d’Ibn Khaldoun, afin de dégager les principaux facteurs déterminant, dans chaque cas, le choix de retraduire. Notre approche théorique s’inscrit dans le contexte récent de remise en cause de ladite « hypothèse de la retraduction » d’Antoine Berman, qui privilégie une analyse textuelle de l’œuvre (re)traduite en négligeant quelque peu l’analyse contextuelle éclairant les conditions de production des retraductions, et en limitant le positionnement du traducteur à sa relation envers la « vérité » du texte source. Ainsi, en retraçant l’histoire des différentes éditions des Prolégomènes au XXe siècle, en exposant le contexte qui entoure les retraductions, et en nous nous attachant aux stratégies discursives déployées par les traducteurs en marge de ces dernières, nous tenons compte des réflexions récentes sur les « causalités multiples » du phénomène de la retraduction, tout en montrant comment la subjectivité du traducteur, ses décisions et ses motivations sont reliées à tous les éléments extratextuels ou contextuels mis en valeur par les théoriciens. Nous montrons par notre analyse que les deux retraductions au corpus sont motivées par des facteurs internes au texte (tels que l’authenticité de leur original, une meilleure connaissance du texte, de la langue et de la culture source, la nécessité de corriger des erreurs dans les traductions antérieures), mais aussi par de nouveaux éléments externes au texte (tels que le changement de normes sociales, littéraires et traductionnelles, l’émergence de nouvelles interprétations du texte, le positionnement idéologique du retraducteur, sa volonté de s’imposer comme une autorité, etc.). La retraduction s’avère donc un phénomène complexe motivé par une combinaison de facteurs, à la fois internes (textuels), externes (contextuels) et personnels, propres au (re)traducteur.

Les retraductions françaises d'Al Moqqadima d'Ibn Khaldoun : étude paratextuelle des retraductions de Vincent-Mansour Monteil (1967) et d’Abdesselam Cheddadi (2002)

Ce mémoire porte sur les retraductions françaises du XXe siècle d’Al Moqaddima (Les Prolégomènes) (1377) d’Ibn Khaldoun, un traité historique et philosophique du XIVe siècle. La première traduction française, Les Prolégomènes, est réalisée par De Slane entre 1840 et 1863. Elle est suivie de deux retraductions, à savoir Discours sur l’histoire universelle (1967- 1968) réalisée par Vincent-Mansour Monteil, et Le Livre des Exemples I : Autobiographie, La Muqaddima (2002) réalisée par Abdesselam Cheddadi. L’objet de ce mémoire est de mener une analyse contextuelle, paratextuelle et discursive de ces deux retraductions de l’œuvre monumentale d’Ibn Khaldoun, afin de dégager les principaux facteurs déterminant, dans chaque cas, le choix de retraduire. Notre approche théorique s’inscrit dans le contexte récent de remise en cause de ladite « hypothèse de la retraduction » d’Antoine Berman, qui privilégie une analyse textuelle de l’œuvre (re)traduite en négligeant quelque peu l’analyse contextuelle éclairant les conditions de production des retraductions, et en limitant le positionnement du traducteur à sa relation envers la « vérité » du texte source. Ainsi, en retraçant l’histoire des différentes éditions des Prolégomènes au XXe siècle, en exposant le contexte qui entoure les retraductions, et en nous nous attachant aux stratégies discursives déployées par les traducteurs en marge de ces dernières, nous tenons compte des réflexions récentes sur les « causalités multiples » du phénomène de la retraduction, tout en montrant comment la subjectivité du traducteur, ses décisions et ses motivations sont reliées à tous les éléments extratextuels ou contextuels mis en valeur par les théoriciens. Nous montrons par notre analyse que les deux retraductions au corpus sont motivées par des facteurs internes au texte (tels que l’authenticité de leur original, une meilleure connaissance du texte, de la langue et de la culture source, la nécessité de corriger des erreurs dans les traductions antérieures), mais aussi par de nouveaux éléments externes au texte (tels que le changement de normes sociales, littéraires et traductionnelles, l’émergence de nouvelles interprétations du texte, le positionnement idéologique du retraducteur, sa volonté de s’imposer comme une autorité, etc.). La retraduction s’avère donc un phénomène complexe motivé par une combinaison de facteurs, à la fois internes (textuels), externes (contextuels) et personnels, propres au (re)traducteur.