Library: Communications and the Arts

This research examines the string literature of American composer and violist Louise Lincoln Kerr. A biography of Mrs. Kerr is given, emphasizing compositional training and skill, her style of composition, contributions to musical organizations in the Phoenix area, and her donation of the Kerr Cultural Center and her manuscripts to the Arizona State University College of Fine Arts. Selected string compositions are examined for their historical significance, compositional style, performer accessibility, and significance to the repertoire. Kerr made use of Native American and Spanish folk melodi...

Political Cartoons, otherwise known as Editorial Cartoons, are single panels of graphics that are satires of political events. Apart from serving as a corrective measure, they also serve as historical documents and are a 'snapshot' of the political climate of a given period. Over the years cartoons have shaped public opinions on societal issues that have sometimes resulted in tragedies in the manner in which information is transmitted to the public. In 2005, over 300 people were killed in the Northern part of Nigeria during a religious riot fueled by a Danish Editorial Cartoon publication w...

Since the 1960s, a new subgenre (cruel-Jidaigeki) has been introduced to Japanese period films, with its own rules. This subgenre requires a new hero. During this research, I found out that Sanjuro, the first recognised hero of this genre, who appears in Yojimbo for the first time and stands as the model for the other cruel-period films, is indeed a complicated man. Firstly, he is after money. The idea is that because he exemplifies the modern Japanese man who is trapped in a new money-oriented society, he needs to represent the financial difficulties of common men. Secondly, in the course of ...

Despite the growing popularity and influence of Japanese animation in America and other parts of the world, the importance of anime studies as audio-visual translation has not been well-recognized academically. In order to throw new light on this problem, the author attempts to clarify distinctive characteristics of English dubs of Japanese animated films between the 1980s and the 2000s, including Hayao Miyazaki's, in descriptive ways: through a corpus-based statistical analysis of vocabulary and a qualitative case study approach to the multimodal text from a synchronic and diachronic point of...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential for increasing informal music-making in elementary school culture, and create a model of such music-making. Precedence for this model can be found in the literature of ethnomusicology, educational psychology and learning theory, multicultural music education, and cultural anthropology. Literature from four distinct traditions and contexts of music-making in integrative sociocultural contexts—sub-Saharan African ngoma, and Community Music as manifested in New Orleans second lines, old-time music and dance, and summer camp music-making—w...

Since its publication in 1860, critics have questioned the artistic value of Hawthorne's The Marble Faun. A revival of critical interest during the 1950's and 1960's has done little to change a generally unfavorable opinion of the work. With a few notable exceptions, most recent critics believe The Marble Faun to be inferior to Hawthorne's other completed romances. Such opinions, however, usually seem to be based upon the personal taste of the individual critic rather than upon any sort of objective artistic standards. The purpose of this study is to examine and evaluate the various critic...

Among the most debated archaeological problems is the repatriation of cultural objects that have been removed from the country of origin and then dispersed in Museums around the world. The need for the return of cultural objects to their homelands is not only derived from the people they belong to, but also from those they appreciate their value and have archaeological interest in them. However, there are a number of problems revolved around most cases, which prohibit the cultural repatriation to be achieved. The case of the Parthenon Marbles is one of the best-known claims for the repatriatio...

This dissertation introduces a new design for a computer-aided algorithmic music composition system. Rather than exploring specific algorithms, this study focuses on system and component design. The design introduced here is demonstrated through its implementation in athenaCL, a modular, polyphonic, poly-paradigm algorithmic music composition system in a cross-platform interactive command-line environment. The athenaCL system offers an open-source, object-oriented composition tool written in Python. The system can be scripted and embedded, and includes integrated instrument libraries, post-ton...

The telecommunications industry has evolved into a very competitive industry since 1980. Aggressive competition is the norm in the long distance, equipment, operator services and many other segments of the industry. The remaining segment of the market without widespread meaningful competition is the “last-mile” wireline service to the customer premise. Incumbent local exchange carriers enjoy a monopoly to serve nearly all residences and most business customers, collecting over 99% of all local exchange service revenues. Using their monopoly status, incumbents have developed a cross-subsidy...

Literary arts have developed, and continue to evolve with the modern human species. These historical based developments have been segregated into pseudo-cultures and pseudo-traditions in support of political myths utilized to inspire fears and justify regulated legislation and beliefs through ancient myth based symbolism reinforced through commercialized arts that misrepresent historical fact based upon scientific technology and know-how. Furthermore, the educational systems of established and recognized governing bodies exclude scientific based truth in favor of the corrupt foundation of "pol...