Tag: Panel B: “Cultural Expressions”

Korean Honorifics and American Politeness

Presenter: Youngju Park (Linguistics)

Mentor: Patricia Pashby

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

What acts of politeness do you, the reader, expect to encounter throughout your day? Perhaps someone slows down for you while merging onto the highway, or a door is held open for you while entering a building. What polite speech acts do you expect to encounter? Is this a more difficult question to answer? The Korean language consists of a complex honorific system that requires that the speaker manipulate grammar and vocabulary according to the listener’s status, age, and title to a higher extent than in American English. This project serves to native English speakers who are studying Korean as a second or third language. This project goes further to make a larger claim for the importance of studying a foreign language because of the experience of relativity one can gain.

The Growth and Function of Gourmet Coffee Culture in the United States and Historic London and the Use of the Coffee House in Eugene, Oregon

Presenter: Sarah Frey-Wyer (Anthropology)

Mentor: Lamia Karim

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

Focusing primarily on Eugene, Oregon, I have created an overview via participant observation of how people use the communal space within a coffee house and use the historic position of coffee houses in London, England as a basis for comparison. How did people use the space of a coffee house in the 17th and 18th centuries in London, and how does that compare to how people use this “third place” (neither home nor work) in Eugene, Oregon today? This project also explores the evolution of coffee culture in the United States and how coffee has become both gourmet and a cultural commodity in the present-day, primarily considering the growth of Starbucks. Extensive research was done on coffee houses in London spanning three centuries (from the mid-1500s onward). Research in Eugene was completed via participant observation, where I went to several local cafes and spent hours observing how people interacted within them. The outcome of this research shows that people make an effort to privatize space while they are in public, communal areas. With the backdrop of historic London’s coffee houses, I compare the two environments and have found gaping differences in the function of a café. This body of work has value because coffee houses are a dominant “third space” in the world today, and how we use them and interact within them is an important facet of our cultural environment.

Moroccan Immigration in Spain: A Discourse Analysis of Anti-Immigrant Sentiments from the El Ejido Riots

Presenter: Meredith Comnes (Spanish and Geography)

Mentor: Lise Nelson

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

On February 5, 2000, El Ejido, Spain, a small town on the Southern Mediterranean coast, erupted in violent conflict with a large riot by local Spanish nationals towards Moroccan immigrants. This riot represents a major explosion of tension between Spanish nationals and Moroccan immigrants that had been escalating since the early 1990s. By completing a discourse analysis of major themes of Spanish media sources, the El Ejido riots show that anti- immigrant discussions evolved in this brief time period. Spanish rioters defined Moroccan immigrants as the “other,” which strengthened Spanish national identity and excluded Moroccans and other immigrant nationalities from peaceful coexistence in Spain. Within the context of Spanish immigration legislation at that time, the discourses surrounding the El Ejido riots show that integration of immigrant groups into civil society is essential to prevent future large-scale ethnic conflicts.

Clientelism as Compensation: How Clientelism facilitates Capital Account Liberalization in Latin America

Presenter: Jonathan Weiland (Political Science, Economics)

Mentor: David Steinberg

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

The general embrace of liberal economic policies throughout the developing world has been noteworthy for its social and political implications. The purpose of this paper is to explore the political dynamics of capital account liberalization (i.e. the free movement of capital across countries) in Latin America since the 1980s. In particular, I study how policymakers were able to enact economic policies like capital openness that imposed severe costs on certain domestic actors. I theorized that the ability of policymakers to compensate those actors hurt by capital openness could help explain the lack of resistance to such policies. The results of a case study of Argentina’s capital account liberalization in the early 1990s and an empirical analysis of 19 Latin American countries give support to this hypothesis. Hence, the analysis conducted in this study has given strong reason to pursue additional research on the relationship between informal interactions among policymakers and citizens (like compensation) and the likelihood of economic reforms throughout the developing world.

Las excelencias de los Hebreos: A Translation of Isaac Cardoso’s Seventeenth-Century Jewish Apologetic Treatise

Presenter: Sarah Shindelman (Spanish)

Mentor: David Wacks

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

The project presents a critical translation of a seventeenth-century Jewish apologetic. The author of the apology, Isaac Cardoso, emigrated from Catholic Spain to the Verona Ghetto in order to convert to his ancestral religion, Judaism. His work, the “Excelencias,” represents the culmination of his spiritual and physical journey to identify his place in society, and he wrote the “Excelencias” to help other conversos like him make the difficult transition from Christianity to Judaism. As an apology, the work attempts to explain Judaism from a Jew’s point of view to non- Jews, namely Christians. The project consists of an introduction giving a short biography of Cardoso, an analysis of the “Excelencias,” a comparison to three other prominent Jewish apologists of the seventeenth century, and a comparison between the Verona ghetto and the Jewish community in Amsterdam (where the text was printed), afterwards follows a translation with supplementary footnotes of the first two chapters of the “Excelencias:” ‘A People Chosen by God’ and ‘One People.’

Show Me Your Moves!: Japanese Music and Dance as a Global Culture through Dance Dance Revolution

Presenter: Edward Ly (Japanese, Mathematics)

Mentor: Alisa Freedman

Oral Presentation

Panel B: “Cultural Expressions” Oak Room

Concurrent Session 2: 10:30-11:45am

Facilitator: Lou Vijayakar

Is Dance Dance Revolution (Konami, 1998) the true dance game for the masses? Ever since its arcade release in Japan, the game has sparked a cultural phenomenon not just in its home country, but also throughout the world within the following years. Numerous spin-offs and rival dance games have been offered up to this day, but Dance Dance Revolution has remained one of the most popular dance games around the world. The success can be attributed to many factors, but it is ultimately the result of the players themselves as part of a growing dance culture that embodies much more than what the game offers on the surface. I will first examine the core gameplay as, while it looks deceptively simple at first, it is as infinitely complex as the practice of dance itself. Then I will briefly look at the history of the game through its music offerings, from the inclusion of Western dance music when it was first released to the recent inclusion of J-pop and anime songs, and how players interact with such music. Finally, I will argue for music arcade games as a form of public art and expression as they create a kind of intrinsic connection between the player, the gameplay, the music, and the social space that arcades provide. In addition, with the use of both popular music and original, diverse music made specifically for the game, there will surely be at least one song that anyone will like and be able to dance. The result is a series that continues to captivate players and that Konami continues to support even today.