Social conditions

On Monday August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall in Southeast Louisiana bringing with it destruction to much of the Gulf Coast. While New Orleans, one of America's most culturally and artistically significant cities, was spared a direct hit, the subsequent flood devastated much of the city, home to many musicians. The devastation and stress from the storm established a situation and a motivator for creative response, and this dissertation illustrates that the music these musicians produce is a manifestation and continuation of New Orleans' cultural atmosphere. The city's historical allowance and celebration of freedom of expression permits New Orleans' current musicians to be innovative and responsive to the events surrounding the disaster. This project, designed as a qualitative research study, identifies four professional musicians who are established in the musical environment of New Orleans. To illustrate the depth of tradition and experimentation that their music evokes, the music of post- Katrina New Orleans is given historical contextualization and set in comparison to music that was inspired by a past catastrophe, the 1927 flood. Through the holistic exploration of the present circumstances of these four musicians, it becomes clear that New Orleans remains a place that is extremely open to change and that experimental music flourishes at the same time that traditional jazz lives on through new performers, who walk in the footsteps of legends. From interviews conducted with these four individuals, as well as other on-site observations, the emotional, physical, and financial effects of Hurricane Katrina are identified and recorded.

Twelfth century French feudal culture witnesses the codification of new marriage laws and a rapid rise in popularity of the Cult of the Virgin Mary, with correspondingly renewed attention being paid to women by ecclesiastical intellectuals of all sects. Of particular interest to these churchmen was the duty of the medieval wife to bear children. The Lais of Marie de France, a late twelfth-century text, often focus explicitly on motherhood (both biological and symbolic) and therefore allow a deeper examination of the new cultural representations of women in the dual role of spouse and mother. The Lais further highlight the symbolic role of the child as guarantor both of a woman's social value and of the validity of the love relationship based on the tenets of fin'amors instead of formal marriage.

The effects that Women's political participation in the Middle East has on political parties and regimes have been investigated by the political science community. However, how women's political participation and changing societal roles affect women's lives has not received adequate attention. This is a comparative historical analysis that investigates how women's societal roles and political participation in Iraq changed from 1968 to the present. It examines how factors such as social conservatism, party ideology, war, sanctions, religion, and international pressure during different periods in Iraq's modern history influenced changes in Iraqi women's roles and participation over time. These changes in societal roles and political participation are used to analyze the restrictions and expansions in Iraqi women's civil rights in areas such as family, work and mobility, political and cultural expression, health and sexual control, and education.

The surge in granting equal rights to gays and lesbians in the United States is remarkable. Yet with this surge comes a conflict : the civil rights of gays and lesbians against the rights of religious individuals, predominantly Christians, refusing to tolerate a behavior they think immoral. My thesis focuses on two hypothetical situations : a county clerk refusing to issue a marriage license to an engaged lesbian couple and an inn owner refusing a night's stay to a gay couple. In both cases, the clerk and inn owner refuse service for religious reasons. Normatively, I argue that we must move beyond a framework of toleration to a system of equal respect and understanding of our fellow human beings. Legally, I argue that the rights of religious expression and exercise should not trump the civil rights of gays and lesbians in the public sphere.

Researchers who study Brazilian immigrants in the United States have noted a lack of camaraderie and social networks among Brazilians. Based on recent research conducted in Broward County, Florida, Manuel Vâasquez argues that while there are clear structural impediments to community formation among Brazilian immigrants, Brazilians do form social networks. This thesis examines the survey and ethnographic data from Vâasquez's sample to test a series of hypotheses about which factors impact levels of social capital and the potential for network creation and mobilization among Brazilian immigrants. Analysis of the data suggests that religious participation and levels of perceived discrimination are correlated with higher levels of social capital in this sample. For a group of immigrants characterized by a lack of collective solidarity and facing an increasingly hostile economic and social climate, religious organizations may be essential locales for achieving sufficient social capital for social, economic, and political integration.

Limestone Creek is an unincorporated community existing within the planning and zoning boundary lines of Jupiter, Florida. Contrasting the economically flush and rapidly developing surrounding municipality of Jupiter, Limestone Creek is a predominantly African American community with an apparent economic gap that leaves the community untouched by development. This thesis project attempts to capture the voices of Limestone Creek and Jupiter residents pertaining to their accounts with an unincorporated area surrounded by a much wealthier municipality. Interviews were conducted with the residents of the community, Palm Beach County and the Town of Jupiter residents and officials, in an effort to explore the existence of an isolated African American community. The research resulted in varied responses to the idea of incorporation because of lack of funds. Conclusions to this research reveal that, to the members of the community, while race underlies all discussions of incorporation the more immediate issue is about securing basic services and infrastructure.

This paper tests the religious economy model for predicting Church behavior which predicts that religious firms will become more politically active on behalf of potential members in areas where competition for those members is most fierce. An analysis of data from a survey of 106 U.S. Catholic dioceses and archdioceses on outreach to Hispanic immigrants does not support this hypothesis. Religious competition and Church activism on immigration issues did not correlate. Rather, demand for services (measured as Hispanic presence within each diocese) was a better predictor of Church activism on immigration issues. This finding suggests that the "inelastic demand" assumption of the religious economy model must be dropped, re-opening demand side explanations for Church behavior across national and local contexts.