Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper looks at opportunities for resistance and the construction of community and pride with/in a primarily Puerto Rican Middle School in Holyoke, Massachusetts. As a theoretical framework, we use Foucault’s discussion of discipline (1979) and the internalization of technologies of practice (1988) in the structuring of performances of admission and extend this analysis with a focus on tactical responses (deCerteau 1972) to the institutional and relational structuring of shame in performances of orality, operations and the ordinary among participants in a Community Based Learning program.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Much has been learned about the factors that impact attitudes toward immigration. Yet, religion has largely been left out of the conversation, despite the fact that religious elites across the spectrum have been extremely active and vocal in calling for liberal immigration reform. Other studies that have included religious variables mostly focus on church attendance and religious affiliation. While these measures of behavior and belonging yield important results, they do not directly tap the religious impulse that may most closely relate to immigration attitudes, namely a religiously motivated concern for the marginalized (religious solidarity). In this paper we analyze the impact of religious solidarity and religious traditionalism on immigration attitudes. Specifically, we find that traditionalism predicts more restrictive immigration attitudes while religious solidarity predicts support for increases in the number of immigrants permitted to enter the United States.

Publication Type: Invited Paper
Abstract: The discussion of deserts in film is usually sidelined and overshadowed by the focus on a set of 'key concepts' in Film Studies, but hardly ever considered independently. Unlike gangsters, zombies, buddies, detectives, vampires and even hammers; deserts have never been upgraded to a film genre in into own right. The discussion of the significance of the desert in U.S. culture does not just reposition primitive and postmodern desert landscapes at the heart of American Studies; it also leads Film Studies into the bare spaces that it has depicted and dramatized throughout its history. The encounter of Film Studies and American Studies in the desert expands the threshold concepts in these respective disciplines.

How can American Studies lead to similar paradigmatic shifts in Film Studies and vice versa? This is the proposed question for discussion.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper uses demographic and economic measures to examine the fiscal policies of special districts. By focusing on districts with borders coterminous with a county, this paper gives a new perspective on district behavior.