CIF Volume 3, Issue 1, Winter 2020
Editor's Preface
Welcome to Culture In Focus, Volume 3. Covid-19 brought its challenges, as it did for everyone, but we were thankfully able to persevere. This issue brings five articles and a review, beginning with Ayse Dalyan and Mevlut Dalyan's discussion of how mythologies produced by societies can be the source of theories of philosophy and psychology as well as become material for popular culture. Next, Sevim Güneş discusses the importance of student engagement and formative assessment in asynchronous distance learning, particularly for English education both in the United States and in Turkey. Nathanael Gilbert cautions that we should not be too quick to minimize core English courses in the university curriculum, especially for students trying to establish themselves during the first two years of college, and he sets his discussion within the context of a national trend towards core curriculum redesign. Kaia Magnusen analyses an art panel By Otto Dix in terms what it tells us about inter-war Germany and the Weimar Republic, especially regarding the tension between "new women," German traditions of masculinity and rampant prostitution in the cities. She helps us see, through the painting, a society going through the sometimes painful but transformative process of defining itself. Next, LaVette Burnette writes powerfully about the influence of TV on negative and positive perceptions of the working Black female, specifically in terms of going beyond the intersectionality of race and gender. Finally, Mary Mears reviews Such a Fragile Peace, a novel set in Middle Georgia, which deftly explores the experiences of several families as they negotiate issues of race, gender, morality and lifestyle in the South from the 1960s to the 1990s. So there you have over 80 pages of timely, well-informed forays into the leafy forests of cultural and educational studies: enjoy!
—Chris
Dr. Chris Cairney, Editor-in-Chief
Contents:
Ayse Dalyan and Mevlut Dalyan, “Turkish Culture and Mythology in Foreign Films.”
Sevim Güneş, “Academic Success in Terms of Distance Education, Middle Georgia State University Example: Does More Lecturer-Involvement Mean a Higher Academic Success Level?”
Nathanael Gilbert, “‘Don’t Take My Comp II Away’: A Mostly Objective Examination of How a New Core Curriculum Could Impact First-Year Writing Courses.”
Kaia L. Magnusen, “‘Deviant’ Women and Disabled Men: The Portrayal of Prostitutes, New Women and Wounded Veterans in Otto Dix’s Großstadt (Metropolis).”
LaVette M. Burnette, “Reframing Tropes: Black Women Professionals on Television.”
Mary Mears, Review of Such a Fragile Peace by Mary Taylor Whitfield (Lizella, GA: Cathier Expressions, 2019).
CIF Volume 2, Issue 1, Summer 2019
Editor's Preface
Welcome to Culture In Focus, Volume 2. This issue brings seven articles ranging from Karmen Lenz's discussion of 12 dark but stimulating paintings from Milton's Paradise Lost (13) to Mack Curry's discussion of social justice methods in the college composition classroom (70). Don’t miss Monica Zandi’s delectable and transforming cultural analysis of 18th century Commedia dell’arte figurines—particularly the famous Harlequin figurines by Franz Anton Bustelli (1)—and don’t miss the vicarious journey as Gül Celkan and Linda Green travel through the Ottoman Empire— ancient and modern — with Paul Theroux and Steven Runciman (28). Also, Debalina Maitra from the Learning Partnership helps us negotiate cultural third space as a way of helping students develop academic literacies as well as self-knowledge (57), while author Judy Light Ayyildiz delivers a “masterclass” in how to conduct writing projects in a cultural context (47), and Sarah Ashley Winans finds the origin of the True Crime detective and the confessional character by going to a single story by Edgar Allan Poe (36).
Next, Gül Celkan reviews a tour-de-force of genealogy and history, Chris Blake’s And half the seed of Europe, a Genealogy of the Great War (99), and I review Gregory Stephens’ “big canvas” view of cultural studies, Trilogies as Cultural Analysis: Literary Re-Imaginings of Sea Crossings, Animals, and Fathering (97), thus giving us over 100 pages of timely, well-informed forays into the jungles of cultural studies: enjoy!
—Chris
Dr. Chris Cairney, Editor-in-Chief
Contents
Monica Zandi, "Tales from the Table:
The Politics of Dessert in Franz Anton Bustelli’s Harlequin."
Karmen Lenz, "Teaching Milton’s Hell in Paradise Lost:
New Paintings by Kathryn E. Lenz."
Gül Celkan and Linda Green, "The Role of Travel Literature in Revealing Cultural Values:
A Case Study on Two “Traveling Gents” to Turkey—Paul Theroux
and Steven Runciman."
Sarah Ashley Winans, "Edgar Allan Poe and True Crime:
Origins of Two Character Types in Crime Fiction."
Judy Light Ayyildiz, "Before, During and After Writing:
The Personal Source and the Extensive Resource in the Research Process."
Debalina Maitra, “'No soy de aqui me soy de na,' I am not from here, I am not from there:
Emergence of Third Space in shaping and conceptualizing Academic Literacies."
Mack Curry, "Adopting Home Language and Multimodality in Composition Courses."
Chris Cairney, Review of Trilogies as Cultural Analysis:
Literary Re-Imaginings of Sea Crossings, Animals, and Fathering,
by Gregory Stephens (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2018).
Gül Celkan, Review of And Half the Seed of Europe: A Genealogy of the Great War,
1914-1918, by Christopher Blake (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2017).
CIF Volume 1, Issue 1, Spring 2018
Contents
Ivy Lai Chun Chun, “The Spectacle of ‘East Meets West’: A Postmodern Shopping Mall, Telford Plaza in Hong Kong.”
Fred Guyette, “The Many Dimensions of Silence: An Interdisciplinary Approach.”
InJu Hwang, “The Relationship between Occupational Stress and Sense of Teaching Efficacy in Child-Care Center Teachers.”
Elizabeth Johnson and Donald Culverson,“Euzhan Palcy: Resistance and Empowerment through Film.”
Samantha Morgan, “Architectural Othering in The Hunchback of Notre Dame.”
Gregory Stephens, “Beyond the Romance of Resistance: Translating Stuart Hall, and Re-imagining Cultural Analysis.”
Mary Christian, Review of Bernard Shaw’s Marriages and Misalliances, edited by Robert A. Gaines (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).
Monica Miller, Review of The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux, by Cathy N. Davidson (New York: Basic Books, 2017).
Andrew Reeves, Review of Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire, by Peter H. Wilson (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2016).
Jason M. Wester, Review of Teach Yourself How to Learn: Strategies You Can Use to Ace a Course at Any Level, by Saundra Yancy McGuire (Sterling: Stylus Publishing, 2018).
Editor’s Corner, Notes and queries: “Intertextuality and Intratextuality: Does Mary Shelley ‘Sit Heavily Behind’ Conrad’s Heart of Darkness?”