Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry

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01/14/2020
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Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Publication
    Fans in the Gutter: People of Color in Comics Fandom
    (2020-01-13) Espinoza-Zemlicka, Liam A
    Fandom and so called “geek culture” have often been characterized as a haven for the marginalized, a place where those who fit in nowhere else have been able to form communities around a shared appreciation of media. I am interested in understanding the experiences of people of color in comic book fandom and how they differ from the experiences of white comic fans. I did a pilot study in Los Angeles in the summer of 2018. I conducted five semi structured interviews of Los Angeles area comic book fans who identified as people of color. This data was augmented by data from an online survey of 31 self-identified comic fans over eighteen of any ethnicity which sought to identify how fans reacted to the idea of racial diversity among comic book characters, and in what contexts most fan interactions took place.
  • Publication
    An Autopsy of the Black Revolution: Looking at Henri Christophe through the Césairean lens
    (2020-01-13) Piard, Johanna M
    In his play The Tragedy of King Christophe, Aimé Césaire shows how Henri Christophe is incapable of establishing an anti-colonial black state because he adopts the colonial structure where his subjects are forced into free labor therefore perpetuating slavery. Instead of considering the immediate needs of the country, Christophe attempts to bring Haiti up as an equal competitor in the industrialized West despite its embargo and looming threat of reoccupation. Christophe becomes a slave master (the ultimate capitalist), thriving on the exploitation of his subjects to build the Citadel. This article looks at how Césaire's play brings nuance to "post-colonial" discourse, showing how the initial victims of colonialism can perpetuate this framework if they profit from it.It also highlights the significance this piece of Haitian Revolutionary literature has on global black liberation literary movement. While the play goes beyond the accuracy of true historical events, Césaire contextualizes what dismantling colonialism potentially means.
  • Publication
    Internet Memes and Desensitization
    (2020-01-13) Sanchez, Barbara C
    Internet memes (IMs) have been used as a visual form of online rhetoric since the early 2000s. With hundreds of thousands now in circulation, IMs have become a prominent method of communication across the Internet. In this essay, I analyze the characteristics that have made IMs a mainstay in online communication. Understanding the definitions and structures of IMs aid in explaining their online success, especially on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. I use these understandings as a basis from which to theorize how both the creative process in making IMs and the prominence of IMs that utilize images of originally violent or sensitive contexts may relate to existing research correlating violent media and desensitization. The use of these images often involves a disconnection from their original contexts in order to create a new and distinct— in many cases irrelevant— message and meaning. These IMs, in turn, exemplify the belittlement of distress depicted in such images—often for the sake of humor. This essay’s main goal is to propose a new theoretical lens from which to analyze the social and cultural influences on IMs.
  • Publication
    Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in Humanitarian Assistance: A Meta-Analysis
    (2020-01-13) Ortiz, David A.
    Every year natural and man-made disasters cause mass population displacement, loss of lives, and human suffering. On a given disaster several international or non-profit organizations will respond depending on the region in need as well as media and donor attention Olsen, Gorm Rye, et al (2003). Because of the extreme unique difficulties found in each disaster zone such as infrastructural damages, uncertain demand and supply, geographical challenges and time pressures, it is imperative that humanitarian organizations have readily available and applicable response methodologies as well as information technologies to increase their relief impact. In regards to the latter Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has proven to be an indispensable tool in the humanitarian sector. However, despite there being great recognition in regards to the importance of geospatial information in relief operations there is still a knowledge gap in regards to all the different tasks and uses of GIS in the humanitarian sector. For example, Espindola et al (2016) lament that despite the recent increase in literature which utilizes GIS for humanitarian logistics most of the research is limited to net-work analysis and also that GIS’s full potential for disaster relief has not been fully tapped. This meta-analysis, for the first time, seeks to address such gap of knowledge by achieving two main goals: (1) To better understand the various ways in which Geographic Information System (GIS) can be applied in humanitarian settings by revealing how the academic community is utilizing such technology in their research, and (2) to point out strengths and areas that have been overlooked as well as help guide future research in this field.
  • Publication
    From Poe to Cortázar: Spheres of Influence and Circles
    (2020-01-13) Garcia, Luis F
    A close examination as well as an exploration of the influence Edgar Allan Poe’s Eureka and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Circles provided to Argentinean writer Julio Cortázar in his short story Axolotl, From Poe to Cortázar: Spheres of Influence and Circles provides a comparison and contrast of the overall thematic elements and literary resources of these texts and authors.