Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: A study was conducted to the relationship of visualizing and verbalizing cognitive styles and the processing of news photographs. First, a mediation model was tested that predicted that attention mediates the relationship between visualizing and photo memory. Second, the relationship between cognitive styles and perceptions was examined. Both visualizing and attention predict memory, but the former does not work through the latter. Further, high visualizers perceived the news photos as more interesting and more unified. As expected, a person’s verbalizing level did not predict attention to or memory for the new photographs. The results are discussed in terms of visualizer’s efficiency in processing visual stimuli.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: In this manuscript I explore the passing of Ellen Smith Craft, a biracial enslaved woman, who appeared as an elegant gentleman and slaver owner in order to escape from slavery. I examine Craft’s passing as an ironic invitation to rhetoric by working through the dynamics she employed in her action and by providing a brief historical account of her escape from slavery. I continue with an examination of the methods by which she sustained her pass—dissimulation, cross-dressing, and feigned disability. I argue that these methods fall under the rubrics of rhetorical irony and intersectionality, thereby producing what I will call the ironic “thickets” of passing. These thickets consist of ambiguities that go beyond racial aspects of Craft’s pass to question other distinctions based on appearance, especially gender, class and disability. Craft’s passing suggests several manners in passing relates to issues of advocacy by illustrating how individuals can mobilize identity to influence perception.
I conclude by demonstrating that, despite appearance, any act of passing involves multiple aspects of identity. Moreover, I assert that Craft’s constant alteration of self-creation and self-destruction in passing to escape from slavery is an unseen, uncertain, and unconventional form of rhetorical irony illustrating, what Schlegel called, the highest level of influential communication we can reach. Suggestions for future research include examination of passing in terms of other aspects of identity and in media, which can be isolated in order to show how multiple meanings are created and assigned by audiences on the basis of visibility.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Drug control and related issues are a key component of the United Nations Program. This paper seeks to analyze what appear to be the major stumbling blocks of the United Nations Drug Control effort: alternative development and international police cooperation._x000d__x000d_Both alternative development and police cooperation focus primarily on developing nations, and nations with weak civil-military relations, which inherently creates problems in implementing alternative development and police cooperation programs._x000d__x000d_By focusing on the limitations of the current drug control regime with respect to its alternative development and police cooperation and using the UN's own data as a backbone, this paper highlights structural limitations--such as transportation networks and poor civil-military relations--with the hope of providing reasonable alternatives that still fall within the UN's competencies, as well as within the goals of the United Nations Drug Control Regime.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In his recent book, The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently...and Why, Richard Nisbett (2003) notes that the characteristic thought processes of Asians and Westerners differs greatly and that “Westerners and Asians literally see different worlds” (p. 12). Yet to date, there has been little conclusive research on how culture shapes audiences’ perceptions of the visual images they see in the media. In this qualitative study the authors asked respondents in the USA, India, and Singapore what they saw in the visuals used in global ads. They found that both Indians and Singaporeans described the connections or relationships between objects and people more often than Americans but that Singaporeans and Americans were far more analytic in their descriptions than Indian respondents.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Explanations for the 1994 Rwandan Genocide tend to focus on the role of identity - often couched in either constructivist or essentialist terms. What is often missing from these discussions is an exploration of the discourses on space. As such, this paper will reflect on the 1994 Rwandan Genocide by situating it within an examination of spatial production and practice. The paper will provide a critical geopolitics reading of the 1994 Genocide, drawing out specific insights as to how spatial practices and representations of space help us understand the causes and aftermath of the Genocide. Spatial practices refers to the material and physical flows, interactions, and movements that occur in and across space as fundamental features of economic production and social reproduction. Representations of space involve all of the concepts, naming practices, and geographical codes used to talk about and understand spatial practices. This paper maintains that spatial practices and representations of space are inherently intertwined because it is unsustainable to maintain a distinction between practice and discourse. A Critical Geopolitics approach explores the power used to define 'dangers,' as well as the power used in constructing a vision of the world in ways that specify political behaviors in particular contexts to provide 'security' against those 'dangers.' Such an approach is vital to understanding the dynamics of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, where 'danger' and 'security' were (and continue to be) defined within specific spatial discourses. Recognizing the plurality of space and the multiplicity of possible constructions of space, this paper will pay specific attention to the contestedness of space leading up to the 1994 Genocide - from sub-state actors, state-based elites, regional forces, and international (formal and informal) actors.