Expanding Engagement (Asynchronous - Online Only)
Featured NATO’s Internal Deepening, Endurance, and Expansion: Economic Incentives and Gains as an Explanatory Complement to Realist Alliance Theory View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Nikoloz Esitashvili
NATO endured the end of the Cold War in 1991, its members deepened their commitment to the alliance, and it expanded considerably. Its survival fundamentally challenges the logic of realism, prompting two essential questions. First, is it possible to salvage realist alliance theory in the face of its apparent failure to explain NATO's continuing operation? This paper contends that realism is repairable and salvageable in this context. Second, if realism is still a viable argument about NATO's endurance, how can it explain it? This study adds a complementary and still-missing explanation to realism based on economic incentives and gains. It argues that economic considerations such as the high cost and complexity to research, design, develop, and produce cost-efficiently modern, sophisticated, and technically complex weapon systems represented a substantial financial undertaking for NATO's great power members. The unparalleled economic burden prompted allies to pull resources together instead of seeking security unilaterally or through other alignment alternatives. The economic imperative of the modern defense industry is an essential and overlooked variable among realist and non-realist perspectives. Economic incentives affected in unprecedented ways the strategic calculus of NATO's great powers and, thus, causes their increased commitment to the alliance, its endurance, and expansion.
Culturally Responsive Teaching: Bridging the Gap between Social and Academic Language Proficiency View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Clarissa Rosas
The student population in the United States is becoming increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). This demographic shift has created concerns as the research indicates that many teachers lack the understanding of second language acquisition and the importance of academic English proficiency. This paper considers levels of language proficiency and evidence based instructional strategies that are effective when teaching English language learners.
Changing Times: A Critical Examination of Time Constraints in the Composition Classroom View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Cara Miller
Even before the challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the composition classroom was fraught with time constraints, both in terms of teaching objectives and assignment deadlines. However, as quarantines and varying degrees of online learning have disrupted normal classroom instruction, it has become even harder for students and instructors to stay on track in the timeframe of a 16-week semester. Students have reported feelings of confusion, isolation, lack of motivation, and anxiety as a result of the pandemic (Means & Neisler, 2020), all of which have posed challenges to their ability to keep up with coursework. This paper explores the topic of flexible deadlines and the potential consequences for teaching and learning. Tara Wood (2017) argued that despite composition’s efforts to stage and sequence writing assignments, standardized deadlines put some students at a disadvantage: “[W]e must pay attention to how we construct time; otherwise, we may enforce normative time frames upon students whose experiences and processes exist in contradiction to such compulsory measures of time” (pp. 260-261). This study focuses on ways to implement flexible deadlines into the composition (and humanities) classroom while adhering to the established course objectives and assignment structure. It also discusses the benefits and potential pitfalls.
Food as a Vehicle for Digital Interdisciplinary: A Model View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Lisa Loftis
Because food is a commonality for all human cultures, intimately connected to all facets of daily life, history, economics, politics, and social identity, it is the ideal vehicle for interdisciplinary courses. And because there is so much information about food on the internet in many languages, it is easy to create classes that transcend disciplinary boundaries including everything from personal blogs to scholarly articles, government publications, educational videos, you tube videos, television programs, festivals, movies, historical and cultural sites, newspaper articles, literature, art, art history, scientific journals.... the list is endless. And it is possible to pull students into the cultures of multiple countries and cultures in a single class, which is imperative for a language like Spanish that includes twenty-one countries. Food allows you to touch aspects of culture and vocabulary that are not typically included in textbooks in a way that is meaningful to students. Food also allows you incorporate materials from various disciplines: film studies, music, literature, agriculture, biology, archaeology, sociology, political science, religion, plant DNA and taxonomy, animal husbandry, chemistry and more. And it is possible to make such a class experiential, by including recipes, grocery shopping trips, native interviews, class dinners and the like. This study provides a model of a successful graduate class that can be modified for undergraduates and looks at questions of organization, course design, challenges, assignment design and examples of primary digital sources as well as an opportunity for faculty to consider their own courses.
Cultural Interactions Formed Environmentalism: Religion, Race, and the Environment View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Avalon Jade Theisen
Environmentalism has become an important contemporary part of many cultures, but the problematic foundations of this movement, including religion and race, must be explored to better understand the current movement. With emphasis on various indigenous cultures, European colonization, and the enslavement of Africans, including their various religions and nature-oriented perspectives, over the past half millennia, modern environmentalism can be better understood. By examining various histories, I have sought to synthesize various worldviews to gain a comprehensive understanding of environmental history. Wilderness has evolved from being perceived as satanic to sublime to necessary for human life. Likewise, conservation developed from essentially religious roots, where park creation, forest preservation, and agriculture improvement were paramount, to the modern environmental movement, where the implications have substantially grown. Unfortunately, much of the environmental movement is rooted in racism, as colonization and dominion led to manifest destiny. As the environmental crisis evolved, many solutions have been put forth, including homesteading, dark green religion, civil earth religion, and island civilizations. The future is uncertain, but history has shown an increasing care for the environment, life-sustaining systems, and cultural diversity.
Tweet for Peace: Twitter as a Medium for Developing a Peace Discourse in the Hands of the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot Leaders View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Christiana Karayianni
The study examines how the two Cypriot leaders – the Greek-Cypriot community leader Nicos Anastasiades and the Turkish-Cypriot community leader Mustafa Akinci –have used their Twitter accounts during the period leading to the intensification of the Cyprus peace process between 30 April 2015– 30 November 2016. This paper uses descriptive analysis and thematic analysis of how the two leaders have used Twitter in the negotiations’ period. The analysis shows that the leaders during the timeframe examined, developed both pro-peace discourses around the Cyprus problem as well as parasocial and vicarious intergroup contact that contributed in what Hogg (2015) defines an intergroup relational identity that is an effective form of “bridging” leadership across communities. The paper argues that Twitter is a tool that in the hands of political leaders in segregated public spheres caused by yet unresolved ethnic conflicts, can become a useful tool for constructing both a positive meaning around issues concerning the rival sides as well as a tool for transforming opposing social identities in the formation of an “extended sense of self that includes the collaboration partner” (Hogg 2015, p.191).
