acase@tulane.edu

ABSTRACT This dissertation examines jazz in the life of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), from its founding after the end of World War II to its dissolution with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. Challenging the established scholarly view that jazz was an art form whose primary dynamic consisted of opposition to the state, this dissertation argues that jazz was in fact a musical genre that enjoyed considerable state attention and in some cases support. Over the 40 years of the GDR’s history, party leaders variously legislated, controlled, repressed, encouraged, and ultimately sponsored jazz activities, recognizing throughout these years that jazz bore a critical relation to Marxist ideology with respect to its origins in racial identity and class-based oppression: this history, then, reflects the evolving struggle by socialist authorities to define this relationship and manage it accordingly. In order to make this argument, this dissertation examines previously unexamined material from a variety of sources in the GDR, including interviews from former residents and jazz actors, private documents such as diaries and letters, official government policies, and records of state surveillance. It provides the first full-length assessment of jazz over the entire lifespan of the GDR, dividing this history into four key phases and documenting the evolution of jazz from its initial use as a tool of re-education immediately following World War II to its emergence as a state-sanctioned art form in the 1980s. In sum, this dissertation argues that jazz can no longer be seen in such a simplistic way as scholars generally contend: rather, this research concludes that jazz must be understood as an art form in continuous and evolving dialogue with, not pure opposition to, the state. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation is a presentation and defense of the idea that public philosophy is a valuable activity, and that public philosophy should be generally supported because it provides benefits to the people who engage in it, and it raises esteem for philosophy generally. Historically philosophy was, in some measure, geared more toward the general public than it is today. Examining the history of philosophy in the most general terms reveals a trend for philosophy, over time, to become less accessible to the public and more of a specialized and professional practice. Philosophy is an activity that can and should provide benefits to people other than professional academic philosophers. In particular, applied philosophy is useful to other disciplines and professions. Applied philosophy is more well-known than public philosophy. Public philosophy may take two forms. There is public philosophy created for the public by public intellectuals. There is also a less well-known variant, philosophy by the public, which allows non-philosophers to participate in philosophical reflection and discussion in public philosophy programs. Public philosophy programs are an innovative way to revive the practice of philosophy as a way for ordinary people to improve their everyday lives. Public philosophy programs benefit individuals as well as their communities. / acase@tulane.edu

Approximately 600 people from across Europe have officially joined Santo Daime, a Brazilian religion organized around the ingestion of a potent psychoactive beverage called ayahuasca. Santo Daime members (called fardados) regularly attend ceremonies where they imbibe ayahuasca while meditating, singing, and dancing for between 6 and 12 hours. Deeming ayahuasca a dangerous “hallucinogen,” most European governments have responded by arresting and prosecuting people who engage in Santo Daime rituals. Highlighting Belgium as a cultural bellwether of Europe, this dissertation pursues the following question: Residing within a social milieu that is dominated by secularism and mainstream Christianity, why are some Europeans adopting Santo Daime spiritual practices? The “secular” designates those aspects of social life that do not involve any recourse to supernatural entities. Through the latter half of the 20th century, most social scientists welcomed progressive secularization as an inevitable substitute for declining religions in Europe. Recently, a budding anthropology of secularism has emphasized how the institutionalization of materialist disenchantment tends to exclude alternative ideas about the nature of mind and reality. Conversions to transnational religions portend deeper shifts in how some Europeans are adapting to an increasingly interconnected world. The clarification of this process is important because scholars have yet to account for why some Westerners are making unorthodox religious choices in the age of secularization. During fieldwork, I asked informants why they had become fardados. The collective responses are summarized by one Belgian fardado who said: “Santo Daime is the key to a lot of solutions.” Fardados consider ayahuasca as a medicinal sacrament (or “entheogen”), which helps them to cure various maladies, such as depression, social anxiety, and alcohol/drug dependence. My informants’ understand their Daime practice as a form of mysticism, whereby the entheogenic ritual acts as a kind of introspective technology (what I term a “suiscope”). Empirical studies corroborate fardados’ claim that ayahuasca is benign and can be beneficial when employed in ritual contexts. One of the essential functions of anthropology is to render different cultural logics as mutually explicable. Accordingly, this dissertation endeavors to intercede in a misunderstanding between a secular hegemony and an unfamiliar religious subculture. / acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

acase@tulane.edu

Armed, illegal non-state actors control small but important sectors of both Brazil and Colombia. In these two countries, traffickers and large gangs concentrated in urban (and, in Colombia's case, also rural) areas clash heavily with state security forces, dominate significant numbers of the urban poor, and play a large, threatening role in the public's imagination. Some vital research has been done on the political and sociological dynamics within the zones controlled by these actors, but there is less in the literature that deals with the specific activities of community media and their relations with the ruling gangs and with local residents. This dissertation focuses on two community media groups, one in Bogotá, and one in Rio de Janeiro, both of which operate in informal urban slums controlled by gangs. It argues that in both cases these groups provide some checks to manifestations of authoritarian aggression, the infliction of arbitrary violence on residents and the climate of fear promulgated by the armed actors in these communities. These community media groups are able to do this by capitalizing on community resistance, by building informal relations and networks with gang membership, and by mobilizing notions of political legitimacy. / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation is an archaeological study of the ancient settlement of Labna, a Lowland Maya community in the Puuc Region of Yucatan, Mexico. The form, layout, and architecture of Labna are representative of a large number of Maya centers. The architectural core is considered a model for studying ancient Maya social organization and reflects the debate among Mayanists about the mechanisms and principles that held together Maya communities and states. Analysis of form and layout, as well as of function and meaning of built spaces in Labna, indicates a stratified type of community, with an internal composition based on social units integrated by different organizational principles. This conclusion is based on comparisons of archaeological feature clusters on basal platforms, the remains of several types of roofed spaces on top of such platforms, and the presence/absence and location/distribution of underground cisterns for storing rain water (chultuns), and grinding stones for corn (metates). In the site center, architectural style, form, layout, and iconography were important sources for inferring chronological and functional information. Excavations that exposed the building sequence of structures forming the architectural core of the ancient community revealed several stages of development. Continuous growth and reorganization of the public buildings resulted in changes in form and function of built spaces. A diachronic approach for understanding core composition of the ancient community showed the dynamic nature in the layout of public architecture. The final layout of the urban core of Labna was the result of architectural programs conducted by several generations of rulers. The notion of sequential architectural programs and the identification of a particular form of built space as throne rooms provided a way to define temporal periods. The notion that throne rooms were manufactured in a sequential order in palace complexes, when combined with analysis of architectural styles, suggest three major building episodes, each probably related to a ruler. This dynamic perception of the social organization reflected in the layout of the site center is the result of a long term conjunctive study that included archaeological excavations, site and intersite settlement patterns, iconographic, geographical, and architectural approaches. / acase@tulane.edu