Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Since the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment was convened in 1972, ?earth summits? held every ten years have sought to foster a measure of collective responsibility for addressing pressing international environmental problems. The earth summit framework can also serve as a useful tool for teaching elements of international environmental negotiation and cooperation in the classroom. This paper describes an earth summit simulation exercise that spans the length of a semester-long course in international environmental politics and culminates in a two-week negotiation session actively involving all class members. Diplomatic action centers on debating and revising documents that reflect many of the issues confronted by representatives at the actual summit meetings. By utilizing such a tool, students can become familiar with the environmental challenges faced by an array of countries, develop their analytical and creative problem-solving abilities, and practice the skills inherent in devising cooperative arrangements among the widely divergent interests represented in the exercise while experiencing some of the conditions that make such negotiations daunting.

Publication Type: Individual Paper
Abstract: This paper examines the message of the Five Percenters through hip-hop music in order to get a deeper look at the complexities of gender in black nationalism with a specific focus on the masculinist tendencies of the Five Percenters and hip-hop as a whole. The main argument is that we can gain a better understanding of gender in hip-hop by exploring the themes in the lyrical content of “conscious” Islamic rappers, especially the Five Percenters. This approach allows us to decode and understand the complex rhetoric and metaphors endemic to Five Percenter ideology while simultaneously exposing the masculinist tendencies inherent in their lifestyle and ethos, as well as in hip-hop. Keeping in accordance with the argument that today’s rappers are carrying on the tradition of the black nationalists of the Black Arts Movement we must also grapple with gender and masculinity in black nationalism. It mirrors the patriarchal system present in broader American society in that manhood for black nationalists and rappers depends on control over the opposite sex (among other things). Finally, we may also use the patriarchy in hip-hop as a lens to view the co-optation of black nationalism by corporate America.

Publication Type: Traditional Presentation
Abstract: Google Earth, NASA’s WorldWind and “Dapple” earth browsing interfaces (and others emerging from MSN and Yahoo) are the newest “killer” web-applications which doors to content in context, especially significant for educational purposes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Being at ‘home’ is largely a question of how we inhabit the world. Both the natural environment in which we inhabit and our techniques of inhabitation give rise to all sorts of belongings and identities. It is for this reason that the concept of habit as an illustration of the ways in which we organize ourselves in the world in order to hold on to space and time, that is, to establish ourselves in space and time, serves as a useful notion with which to explore the question of ‘home’. This paper borrows from Gilles Deleuze’s and Henri Bergson's elaboration on the concept of habit taken to be the fragile synthesis of both time and forces that provides a mode of consistency within a world that seemingly posits no possibility of inhabitation. As such, it offers itself as a way in which we can ‘hold on’ amidst the flux without grasping too tightly.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Contemporary theorists contest the importance of the link between John Locke's political theology and aspects of his political theory more broadly consistent with Enlightenment liberalism. Locke's theological commitments take on particular importance in his theory of toleration (explored in his Letter Concerning Toleration, among other writings). In this paper, we examine the conceptual and documentary evidence for a link between Martin Luther's thought and John Locke's political theology. We find congruence between Martin Luther's argument for separation of Church and state on theological grounds and Locke's defense of toleration and argue that Locke was in conversation with Luther’s notion of the separation of the Church and the State—either at first hand, or mediated by other thinkers. In an important sense, Locke’s political philosophy is grounded in Martin Luther’s notion that each establishment remain in the proper function that God intended for it. This has significant impact for how contemporary liberal scholars appropriate Locke's political theory.