American Commonalities and Roots of European Integration

This article looks deeply into the historical parallels between the American and European experiences of state integration, which have resulted in the United States of America and the European Union, respectively. It first defines the key international relations concept of state integration and compares American and European thought on the idea. It then turns to examine some of the highpoints in the history of integration in the American and European cases. Given the remarkable historical commonalties between the two processes, the article puts forward the idea of the American experience as a chief inspiration and source for European integration. It concludes by suggesting that without the historical example of the United States, as well as massive American post-war assistance to Europe, it is highly doubtful that European integration would have commenced when and as it did.

PIPELINES AND TIGHT RHYMES: VIRTUAL MEDIA AND HIP-HOP IN JAPAN & NEW ZEALAND

<p>This thesis looks at hip-hop as a contemporary pop cultural phenomena and its relationship with media in the construction of underground hip-hop communities in Japanese and New Zealand settings. My work on hip-hop in Japan illustrates how global networks influence a traditionally mono-cultural society reckoning with a style connected to African-American experience. A New Zealand setting illustrates how virtual networks allow connections to wider hip-hop culture from a geographically isolated setting and legitimises the local scene. In looking at both settings side-by-side, this thesis underscores the various ways that virtual networks and their increased visibility are used contemporaneously in the construction of local hip-hop scenes as a tool to understand and promote hip-hop music. Based on a mix of virtual fieldwork, fieldwork in New Zealand, as well as fieldwork in Japan, this thesis shows that questions of authenticity in hip-hop have become more complex through different manifestations of hip-hop culture that challenge traditional understandings of the genre’s meaning. This is a result of the varying levels of user-agency in virtual networks. In a Japanese setting, we see an increased importance placed on virtual networks, allowing hip-hop fans and musicians alike to be part of the immediate conversation. Language barriers to hip-hop’s dominant English vernacular mean that this conversation is generally filtered through the most dominant networks and ‘mainstream’ culture. These impressions of hip-hop are the driving forces of style for the Japanese scene, leading to a collapse of the dichotic underground/mainstream divide seen in the earlier generations of Japanese hip-hop. In a New Zealand setting, virtual networks are used to connect with English speaking hip-hop musicians overseas, allowing musicians to operate in ‘underground’ virtual communities that are not physically manifested in New Zealand. By drawing attention to the ways that hip-hop culture is formed, legitimized, and understood in these two geographic and cultural settings, this thesis demonstrates that hip-hop culture exists in an integral relationship with virtual media and explores questions of appropriation, imitation, and authenticity.</p>

PIPELINES AND TIGHT RHYMES: VIRTUAL MEDIA AND HIP-HOP IN JAPAN & NEW ZEALAND

<p>This thesis looks at hip-hop as a contemporary pop cultural phenomena and its relationship with media in the construction of underground hip-hop communities in Japanese and New Zealand settings. My work on hip-hop in Japan illustrates how global networks influence a traditionally mono-cultural society reckoning with a style connected to African-American experience. A New Zealand setting illustrates how virtual networks allow connections to wider hip-hop culture from a geographically isolated setting and legitimises the local scene. In looking at both settings side-by-side, this thesis underscores the various ways that virtual networks and their increased visibility are used contemporaneously in the construction of local hip-hop scenes as a tool to understand and promote hip-hop music. Based on a mix of virtual fieldwork, fieldwork in New Zealand, as well as fieldwork in Japan, this thesis shows that questions of authenticity in hip-hop have become more complex through different manifestations of hip-hop culture that challenge traditional understandings of the genre’s meaning. This is a result of the varying levels of user-agency in virtual networks. In a Japanese setting, we see an increased importance placed on virtual networks, allowing hip-hop fans and musicians alike to be part of the immediate conversation. Language barriers to hip-hop’s dominant English vernacular mean that this conversation is generally filtered through the most dominant networks and ‘mainstream’ culture. These impressions of hip-hop are the driving forces of style for the Japanese scene, leading to a collapse of the dichotic underground/mainstream divide seen in the earlier generations of Japanese hip-hop. In a New Zealand setting, virtual networks are used to connect with English speaking hip-hop musicians overseas, allowing musicians to operate in ‘underground’ virtual communities that are not physically manifested in New Zealand. By drawing attention to the ways that hip-hop culture is formed, legitimized, and understood in these two geographic and cultural settings, this thesis demonstrates that hip-hop culture exists in an integral relationship with virtual media and explores questions of appropriation, imitation, and authenticity.</p>

Paraguay Natural Ilustrado by José Sánchez Labrador SJ: Between the American Experience and Exile

This paper analyzes the work Paraguay Natural Ilustrado and discusses the impact that the American experience and the later exile in Italy had in the trajectory and intellectual production of its author, Jesuit priest José Sánchez Labrador. The four volumes have evidence of the scientific advancements in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century, due to his contact with other exiled Jesuits and the collection of the Library of Ravenna, along with his observations of American nature and the indigenous populations of the Jesuit Province of Paraguay. His experience for thirty-four years in the Americas, and later in exile, unmistakably are present in Paraguay Natural. It contributes significantly to the reconstitution of the circulation process and appropriation of botanical knowledge and of the intellectual environment in which the Jesuit brothers and priests were in, both in the missions among the natives in America, as well as in Europe in their exile.

Seeing Like a Publicist

Chapter 1, Seeing Like a Publicist, locates the origins of public relations alongside emerging environmental narratives at the beginning of the twentieth century. The United States Forest Service, a federal bureau established during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, represented a vision of nature as resource for development, at odds with the romantic spirit of wilderness preservationists such as John Muir. Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot developed sophisticated mechanisms and messages to promote his commitment to a distinctly American culture of nature, qualifying and transforming the character of environmental information to the news-reading public in the process. Pinchot developed foundational concepts and practices of public relations that would leave deep grooves in the American experience of environmentalism.

1. American poetry’s two characteristics

“American poetry’s two characteristics” explains the two characteristics which mark American poetry. On the one hand, several of its major figures promoted American poetry as essentially different from any other nation’s. Although the reasons they offer vary, they typically claim that American experience demands a different kind of expression. Such poets advocate for novelty, for a break with what is perceived to be outmoded and foreign. On the other hand, American poetry might be more rightly called profoundly transnational. American poetry often welcomes techniques, styles, and traditions originating from outside it. The two characteristics do not exist separately from each other. Rather, they work in a productive dialectic, inspiring both individual accomplishment and the broader field. Examples include Anne Bradstreet, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, and Langston Hughes.

Independent States: A Perspective from International Relations

According to the nature of the Westphalian system, the independent state is the central actor in international relations. However, the discipline has not developed theoretical approaches regarding the independence process, which is considered more a concern of the international law and the political interests of state actors. Then, in this article, the issue of independence is analyzed as a basic step for political entities to access statehood, becoming a basisfor understanding the role of the independent state in the Westphalian order. It is necessary to observe the variations in the conception of independence, especially regarding self-determination and recognition principle, acknowledging the existence of deep changes in the international system. This principle has had greater relevance since the 1990s due to the disintegration processes of some countries, particularly the case of Kosovo. Taiwan is also a relevant experience. Another key point is the weakening process of the state, with the appearance of variants that question the status and existence of the state actor. At the end of this paper, a brief reference is made to the Latin and Central American experience, which shows particularities since the 19th century.