Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: This paper considers the rhetorical efforts of Robert B. Forten and James Forten, Jr., who in 1835 and 1836, respectively, delivered abolitionist orations before the Ladies’ Anti-Slavery of Philadelphia. Expertly crafting their arguments to suit audiences of white and African American women, these black men select topoi and appeals that demonstrate the pervasiveness of nineteenth-century notions of ideal womanhood. They emphasize women’s superior moral nature, their natural attention to the mechanics of sympathy, and their influence on children. Equally significant, however, the brothers draw upon arguments that more typically inform the male abolitionist rhetoric, both for whites and African Americans, such as appeals to natural rights and the Founding Fathers, conventional patriotism, arguments about sectionalism, and signifying. Artfully combining a wide variety of strategic choices, these sons of the pioneering Philadelphia businessman and rhetor James Forten suggest the complexity and dynamism of antebellum African American rhetoric, particularly as it attempts to persuade across race and gender. These understudied speeches demonstrate that in at least several ways, the antebellum black public sphere manifested a surprisingly sophisticated, catholic view of gender and gender roles.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: “We did not cross the border the border crossed us.”
By
David C. Brotherton.

This paper explores the socio-cultural meanings of “border” in the everyday lives of undocumented immigrants residing and working in the United States and their erasure from the immigration literature. The data is derived from a transnational ethnographic study of Dominicans who have been deported from the United States. In describing the undocumented immigrant as the quintessential transgressive subject/object in late modernity I show how the immigration literature, having deserted its roots in social control, has consistently failed to address this phenomenon. In contrast, the growing field of cultural criminology with its focus on meaning-making in subterranean life worlds provides both the theoretical and methodological tools to excavate this highly fluid and symbolic terrain. I argue that it is only through a constitutive cultural criminology that we can understand the contradictory status of the undocumented immigrant as both the indispensable supplier of globalized labor and the fastest growing segment of the federal ;prison population.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The presentation will focus on College of Atlantic?s goal of creating multiple interdisciplinary programs meant to prepare students to do sophisticated and advanced work on ecological issues in international settings, such as Mexico, Guatemala and Tobago.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This research seeks to examine different Christian perspectives on interfaith dialogue in both the U.S. and Indonesia. Each country has experienced growing tensions and outright violence between Christians and Muslims in recent years and each has approached interfaith dialogue as an important way to achieve mutual understanding and reconciliation. Yet many important questions relating to theological doctrine, hermeneutics, and religious pluralism remain for Christians. This research will investigate (1) how Christian scriptures are drawn upon on to accept or reject dialogue, (2) how different denominations address religious pluralism and the role of mission, (3) the specific motivations for dialogue, and finally, (4) the impact of majority-minority status and culture on the imperative to dialogue or not to dialogue. Specifically, Roman Catholic, Presbyterians, Baptist and Pentecostal groups will be surveyed in both the U.S. and Indonesia to analyze how these Christian groups are addressing their political and cultural contexts and relationships with Islam and Muslims, the extent to which denominational doctrines remain consistent over culture and social composition, and how these groups can help to build a larger theoretical understanding of how Christianity approaches interfaith dialogue with Islam.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper presents a comprehensive, context-based theory which both places cross burning in its proper doctrinal framework and recognizes the history of cross burning as one of Ku Klux Klan inspired terrorism directed at African Americans. Critical commentary on the Supreme Court’s decision in Virginia v. Black prefaces an analysis of the full landscape of cross burning cases including another issue to which others have paid little attention— the ways in which state courts have negotiated First Amendment challenges to cross burning statutes. Thoroughly examining cross burning from each of these perspectives, the paper argues that cross burning should be treated as hate crime, which may be prosecuted, rather than as constitutionally protected hate speech.