Does The Void Exist Essay -- essays research papers

Does the void exist?     One of the main controversies in Pre-socratic philosophy is the difference of the existence or non-existence of the void. Two groups of philosophers argue this idea. The first group, namely Parmenides, argues that the void does not exist. This is the opinion of the Monist philosophers. The other group is the atomists who argue this thesis and believe at that place is a void. This group is primarily represented by the philosophers, Democritus and Leucippus.      Parmenides argues against the existence of the void. The plenum fragment states his opinion quite clearly     "Nor is it divisible, since it is all alike nor is thither much here and less on that point,      which would prevent it from holding together, but it is full of what is. So it      is all continuous, for what is clings close to what is."     This shows the idea, that if there would be a void or an empty plaza then "what is" would move into it. Hence, there is no void. Because "what is" fills up this space completely. "Since it is all alike" volume or density is continuous everywhere. Since it is not divisible there is no void between "what is". Also "what is" itself has no void in it. If there were void or space in one object, compared to a more denser object these particles would not "...

Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot as an Existentialist Play Essay

postponement for Godot as an Existentialist Play The play, Waiting For Godot, is centred around two men, tarragon and Vladimir, who are waiting for a Mr. Godot, of whom they know little. Estragon admits himself that he may never recognize Mr. Godot, Personally I wouldnt know him if I ever precept him. (p.23). Estragon also remarks, we hardly know him. (p.23), which illustrates to an audience that the individualism of Mr. Godot is irrelevant, as little information is ever given throughout the play about this undefinable Mr. X. What is an important element of the play is the act of waiting for someone or something that never arrives. Western readers may find it natural to speculate on the identity of Godot because of their inordinate need to find answers to questions. Beckett however suggests that the identity of Godot is in itself a rhetorical question. It is possible to stress the for in the waiting for to see the purpose of doing in two men with a mission, not to be deflect ed from their compulsive task. Estragon Lets go. Vladimir We cant. Estragon Why not? Vladimir Were waiting for Godot. (p.14). The essence of existentialism concentrates on the concept of the individuals freedom of choice, as opposed to the belief that humans are controlled by a pre-existing omnipotent being, such as God. Estragon and Vladimir adjudge made the choice of waiting, without instruction or guidance, as Vladimir says, He didnt say for sure hed come (p.14), but decides to wait till we know exactly how we tie (p.18). Albert Camus, an existentialist writer, believed that boredom or waiting, which is essentially the breakdown of routine or habit, caused people to think seriously about their identity,... ...h other or from their situation in general. The optimistic view of the play shows a range of human emotion and the need to share experiences alongside the suffering of finite existence governed by the past, playacting in the present and uncertain of the future. Works Cited and ConsultedAlvarez, A. Samuel Beckett. New York Viking, 1973.Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot A Tragicomedy in Two Acts. New York Grove, 1953.ClassicNote.com by GradeSaver. J. N. Smith. Aug. 1999. Web. 27 March 2015 Gradesaver.com/ClassicNotes/Titles/WaitingForGodot/Analysis.htmlGraver, Lawrence. Waiting for Godot. 5th ed. New York U of Cambridge P, 1999.Hugh Kenner, A Readers Guide to Samuel Beckett, London 1973.http//www.britannica.com/eb/print?tocId=9014042Wikipedia. Waiting for Godot. Web. 27 March 2015 http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_for_Godot

Kwan Win: Buddhist Bodhisattva Essay -- social issues

Kwan Win Buddhist BodhisattvaCompassion and Peace as a Spiritual Guide The caterpillar track to spiritual freedom is sought by many people in this world. Relief from suffering is sought by many more. In these times, in completely times past, and probably in times to come, the need for a spiritual guide is apparent. Kwan Yin (Guan Shih Yin in China, Kannon in Japan) is a Buddhist goddess of compassion who provides this guidance and bang for countless people. Kwan Yin reflects the Mahayana Buddhist archetype of bodhisattva, a being of pure compassion. A bodhisattva is a person who delays his or her full enlightenment in order to abet in the liberation of all beings. Bodhisattva literally translates to Buddha to be, and it is only when all beings have been relieved from suffering that a bodhisattva will allow themselves to reach parinirvana. Kwan Yin illustrates the concept of a bodhisattva very well. In one story about the Thousand-Armed Guan Shih Yin (one of her better known mani festations), a Princess named Miao Shan was disowned by her father and sent to a nunnery. At the nunnery, she was agonistic to do the dirtiest jobs, but this did not break her spirit. Her father, the king, then sent soldiers to the nunnery to set it on fire. After performing a miraculous deed that extinguished the fire, Miao Shans father was even more incensed. He sent an executioner to kill her, and she was strangled to death. After his awful actions, Miao Shans father became very ill with a sickn...

Food Irradiation Essay -- essays research papers

Food IrradiationFood gibe has the longest history, more than 40 years, of scientific research and testing of any feed technology so unityr approval. Research has been comprehensive, and has included wholesomeness, toxicological, and microbiological evaluation. Worldwide, 38 countries permit irradiation of food, and more than 28 billion lb of food is irradiated annually in Europe. It is important to note that food irradiation has a pretty remarkable list of national and international endorsements ADA, American Council on Science and Health, American Medical Association, Council for Agricultural Science and Technology, international Atomic Energy Agency, Institute of Food Technologists, Scientific Committee of the European Union, United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), and the World Health Organization (WHO).Although the US food supply has achieved a high level of safety, microbiological hazards exist. Because foods may contain pathogens, mishandling, including im proper cooking, can result in food-born illness. Irradiation has been identified as one solution that enhances food safety through the reduction of potential pathogens and has been recommended as part of a comprehensive program to enhance food safety. However, food irradiation does not replace proper food handling. So the handling of foods processed by irradiation should be governed by the same food safety precautions as all...

Folklore in Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Alice in Wonderland :: Movies Film TV Television Essays

Folklore in Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Alice in Wonder the three estatesFolklore in the movies usually focuses around a virtuoso or heroine, that hero or heroine is in a situation that they have to overcome. The hero or heroine can come in many different forms it could be a puerile boy a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, or an over the hill astronaught lost in space, or a little girl who falls down a hole. I am going to show how three movies contain folklore, Star Wars IV A New Hope, Planet of the Apes one, and Alice in Wonderland. But first I need to define what folklore in the movies is. Folklore in the movies has five main points which the hero or heroine goes through. The vociferation to adventure something has to happen to the hero or heroine in order to get them involved in some situation which concerns them greatly. Refusal of the call the hero or heroine has to decline something or someone. Supernatural aid the hero or heroine gets help from an outside forc e, someone wiser than the hero or heroine, and someone who understands the situation better. The crossing of the first limen once involved with the situation before them, the hero or heroine has a conflict which causes them to get caught in the belly of the whale. The belly of the whale the hero or heroine gets caught in some place, of which they try to escape. Star Wars is one of the best movies to use as an example for folklore in the movies. The call to adventure fate would have it that R2D2 would land into the hands of Luke Skywalker. The only thing keeping Luke from joining the Rebel Alliance is his uncle Owen Lars, aunt Beru Lars, and the harvest but when the empire comes looking for R2 they come to Lukes house and eradicate his aunt and uncle. Refusal of the call at first Luke says no to Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi. Han Solo doesnt want to help the Rebel Alliance at first, but at the end he does and saves Lukes life. Supernatural aid Obi Wan is the old man in Star Wars who underst ands the force and who teaches Luke the ways of the force. The crossing of the first threshold when Alderaan gets blown up, the millenary Falcon gets caught in the Death Stars tractor beam, leaving them stuck inside the largest, most deadly battle-station ever created.

Folklore in Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Alice in Wonderland :: Movies Film TV Television Essays

Folklore in Star Wars, Planet of the Apes, and Alice in WonderlandFolklore in the movies usually focuses round a hero or heroine, that hero or heroine is in a smear that they have to oercome. The hero or heroine can come in more different forms it could be a teenage boy a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, or an over the hill astronaught lost in space, or a little girl who falls down a hole. I am going to show how tierce movies contain folklore, Star Wars IV A New Hope, Planet of the Apes one, and Alice in Wonderland. But first I need to define what folklore in the movies is. Folklore in the movies has basketball team main points which the hero or heroine goes through. The crab to adventure something has to happen to the hero or heroine in order to get them involved in some situation which concerns them greatly. Refusal of the call the hero or heroine has to disobey something or person. Supernatural aid the hero or heroine gets help from an outside force, someone wiser t han the hero or heroine, and someone who understands the situation better. The get across of the first threshold once involved with the situation before them, the hero or heroine has a conflict which causes them to get caught in the breadbasket of the whale. The belly of the whale the hero or heroine gets caught in some place, of which they try to escape. Star Wars is one of the best movies to use as an example for folklore in the movies. The call to adventure fate would have it that R2D2 would land into the hands of Luke Skywalker. The only thing keeping Luke from joining the Rebel Alliance is his uncle Owen Lars, aunt Beru Lars, and the harvest but when the pudding stone comes looking for R2 they come to Lukes house and kill his aunt and uncle. Refusal of the call at first Luke says no to Ben (Obi-Wan) Kenobi. Han Solo doesnt want to help the Rebel Alliance at first, but at the end he does and saves Lukes life. Supernatural aid Obi Wan is the old man in Star Wars who understand s the force and who teaches Luke the ways of the force. The crossing of the first threshold when Alderaan gets blown up, the Millennium Falcon gets caught in the Death Stars tractor beam, leaving them stuck inside the largest, most deadly battle-station ever created.

Pre-Transfusion Blood Tests

Pre-blood transfusion Blood runs Title To perform the following tests ABO and RH grouping using the Diamed gelatin measure arranging. Rh and Kell phenotyping (antigen typing) using the Diamed Gel circuit card system. Direct Coombs Test (DCT) using the conventional pipage system. Direct Coombs Test (DCT) using the Diamed Gel bill system. Antibody Identifications (IAT) proficiency using the conventional tube system. Antibody Identifications (ETC) technique using the Diamed Gel posting system. Name S. Ward Date 8/11/2012 Introduction The objective of this serviceable is to perform some pretransfusion tests, using various methods.Pretransfusion testing is carried out in all hospital stock bank laboratories and is utilise to minimise the risk of encurring a haemolytic transfusion reaction. Haemolytic transfusion reactions occur when a patient is transfused with red ink cells which have a foriegn antigen on the cell surface that the patient has an antibody to. spell the ABO an d Rh blood group systems argon the most antigenic and thus cease cause severe haemolytic transfusion reactions. The other blood group systems can as well as cause a (less severe) haemolytic reaction, these reactions can be fatal and so the procedures to avoid them are of great importance.Materials & Method non all tests were performed by all members of the class. ABO and Rh blood grouping using the Diamed Gel Card system performed. Rh and Kell trying using the Diamed Gel Card system not performed. Direct Coombs Test (DCT) using the Diamed Gel Card systemnot performed. Antibody Identification (ETC) technique using the Diamed Gel Card system performed but not centrifuged so no yields were obtained. Antibody Identifications (IAT) technique using the conventional tube system performed Direct Coombs Test (DCT) using the conventional tube system erformed. Cell 1% suspensions were prepared for the bench from a 3% cell suspension provided. Results As well as some tests not being comple ted by every integrity, some results were not obtained as there was a queue for the ID centrifuge. Results below are ones obtained by myself ABO & Rh grouping know O+ cells were tested. Expected results would be However, the gel matrix had dried out so no results were obtained. Antibody Identifications (IAT) technique using the conventional tube system + + + + + +When these results are compared with the ID panned profile, its is manipulaten that there is no antigen which matches the antibody in the patients plasma. Traditional Direct Coombs test results was positive. Discussion The results from this practical were not as expected. With regard to the ABO Rh typing, the expected result for the O+ blood tested is as shown above. The reason why the results obtained were incorrect were because the gel had dried out. This shows that it is very important to ensure that the reagents used in the transfusion laboratory are of a really high quality to ensure that all results obtained are reliable.With regard to the traditional antibody profile, it is seen that there is no antigen which matches the antibody in the patients plasma according to the ID panel. It is possible that the patient has an uncommon antigen which isnt on the ID panel. However, its more likely that there was human error in labelling the reaction tubes 1-10. The direct coombs test checks to see in vivo sensitisation to IgG antibodies. The traditional coombs test results for this practical showed aggultenation when treated with antihuman globulin, which is a positive result.Results for the other laboratory tests using Diamed Gel Card system were unobtained due to there being a queue for the centrifuge. A brief explanation of all these tests is explained below ABO & Rh D grouping this can be done by conventional tube technique, as performed previously, or can be done using the Diamed Gel Card system. These gel tease contain known antobodies on a gel matrix. A positive result shows the red cells kep t at the top of the gel matrix, a ostracize result sees the red cells going down through the matrix to the bottom of the card.This has replaced the traditional method as it allows for automation. Rh & Kell phenotyping this is done using the Diamed Gel Card sytem and is similiar to the ABO and Rh typing method. This shows which, if any of the main Rh or Kell antigens are on the patients red cells. The results are read in the same sort as the ABO and Rh D as described above. Direct Coombs Test using the conventional tube system The direct antiglobulin test is used to detect in-vivo sensitisation and detects small IgG antibodies on a patients red cells.The conventional tube method involves washing the cells three times for one minute, resuspending distributively time, then finally adding two drops of antihuman globulin and centrifuge once more for 20 seconds and results were recorded. This process is laborious and so can be replaced with the next method. Direct Coombs Test using the Diamed Gel Card system The gel card system involves the addition of 1% cell suspension of test cells to the Anti IgG card, this is centrifuged for 10 minutes and results are recorded. This method also shows in-vivo sensitisation and detects small IgG antibodies on the patients red cells.Antibody Identifications (IAT) technique using the conventional tube system Antibody designation is used as a follow-up test to a positive indirect antiglobulin test. The antibody identifcation test is used to determine the red cell antibodies in the patients plasma. If one or more clinically significant red cell antibodies are identified, then donor blood that lacks the corresponding red cell antigens must be used for tranfusion, this is reffered to as antigen negative blood. The conventional tube system involves reacting the patients plasma with the 10 commercial identification cells.This is incubated for 30 minutes at 37c, to each one of the reaction tubes are washed 3 times for one minute, res uspended after each time and then two drops of antihuman globulin are added and the tubes are centrifuged for an additional 20 seconds and results are recorded. This process is laborious, and so can be replaced by the gel card system which can be automated. Antibody Identifications technique using the Diamed Gel Card system The method is the similiar to the other gel card systems and the principle it the same as the other antibody identification.As mentioned bofore, this process allows for automation and so is favoured in large labs. Questions precept of the Direct and Indirect Coombs test The principle of the Coombs test is that addition of rabbit anti-human IgG to the patients blood will result in aggregation of the patients red cells if the red cells are coated in small IgG antibodies that will not agglutenate normally at room temperature. So, the direct antiglobulin test is used to detect in-vivo sensitisation to IgG antibodies. ApplicationsThe direct coombs test is udes to test for autoimmune haemolytic anaemia. The indirect coombs test can be used to detect very small amounts of antibodies pledge in a patients plasma and if used in antenatal care to screen pregnant women for antibodies that may cause haemolytic disease of the newborn. It can also be used for compatability testing, antibody identification, RBC phenotyping and titration studies. Controls The positive control is sensitised O+ cells and the negative control is O- cells.

The Thing in the Forrest

Sometimes in living when we have an experience that deeply affects us, it can change our total perspective. The story The Thing in the forest is a example of how this can happen. The two main characters penny and primrose meet when they argon children and sh be a horrific experience in the forest. Then by chance meet rearwards at the scene and briefly reassure unrivaled an other that what happened real did happen. But their contact ends there once again almost as if find oneselfing each other was too uncomfortable.Then oddly enough two women end up going back to the forest facial expression for almost kind of resolve. In The Thing in the Forest the two little girls escort a terrifying prick that profoundly affects their sense of reality this results in similar personal traits and shargond sense of searching for whats real disdain that they neer talk of it. When the two girls meet not much is given close their characters, however throughout the story we find that the tw o ladies have quite a a few things in common. This is due to their experience in the forest that they shared so long ago.Some of the similarities are within their character and nigh are sheer coincidence. Neither woman has married probably because of their disrupted childhood when they were exiled from their families and sent to live in the great sign by the forest until it was safe again at home (Byatt). This is when Penny and Primrose decide to go into the woodwind and are followed by a junior girl who is never seen again. The girls encounter a creature that smelled of liquid putrefaction and looked like a mixture of rank meat and decaying vegetation (Byatt).The wake of the creature leaves a lead of bloody slime and dead vegetation in which the younger girl disappears (Byatt). Then the genuinely next day the girls are placed with temporary families. at one time home again both girls fathers die in accidents. Pennys father died in a firefighting accident and Primroses was a causality of the war as he was soldier. The experience of being exiled, their fathers sudden deaths and and seeing this terrifying creature that possibly killed the younger girl has hanged their sense of what is real, Im sure the purpose of love and relationship is very easily questioned for the both of them. Both women also have chosen jobs that work with children Penny becomes a child psychologist dealing in the main dealing in the dreams of children and Primrose among her other odd jobs becomes a childrens story time teller at the local mall. Both women are embroiled with children and their minds just on different ends of the spectrum. One listens and one tells.When Penny and Primrose meet by quirk of fate back at the great house, that has now been given to the nation and made in to a museum, they are taken aback by the unplanned visit. They become aware of each other while reading a commentary of a story in a book about a fabled worm like creature that supposedly lurked in t he woods near by. The alarm of the story and the by chance meeting of the two women while simultaneously reading its historic description jolts the two. They feel as if they would have never recognized each other if it werent for the given situation.They reassure each other that they both really did see the creature that it is real. The women remark on how strange it is that the childrens presence during the exile is not depicted anywhere in the history of the house. This lack of mention about the children in exile ever being in the house reaffirms some of the question of what is real in the two womens minds. They decide on having some tea and reminisce a little more about the time they spent in exile, on the train, in the great house, brief tidbits of their life and the younger girl named Alys who had disappeared. It did finish her off, that little one, didnt it? I wonder if wed made her up, said Primrose. Nobody ever asked where she was or looked for her, said Penny (Byatt). The women are slightly relived at their agreement because this gives them the assurance they need not to feel as if they made the whole thing up. The assumed death of the younger girl could be said to mirror the psychological death of Penny and Primrose, and this reassurance helps them feel as if they can finally move on.This brief conversation amid the two is the last contact they will have with each other. The women both decide not to honor the dinner date they planed, I believe at this point the Penny and Primrose feel any further contact with each other is unbearable because of the underlying memories of any supplementary conversation. Yet they are still searching for what is real within them selves. Searching to the extent that both women are drawn back in to the woods and for the like reason. Primrose goes to the woods with purpose she even follows the same path from years ago. Primrose had really been in a magic forest. She knew that the forest was a source of terror (Byatt). fleck in the forest she questions what is real in her life, her home and how her mother disclosed that her father had been killed. She resolves that the forest and what happened in it to be truly real. In all of her sentiment she decides she is satisfied and in turn wants to go home. The way Primrose views this experience and the woods around her in a story like fashion is very telling about why she deals in storytelling for a job.It all comes from the same place and this is why she has always careful not to scare the children she reads to. Penny on the other hand ends up in the forest even after purposely walking in the opposite direction of their original path. She is very perceptive of her surroundings in a different way than Primrose, who feels the need to almost coach herself along in a story like fashion, whereas Penny was looking for signs of the creature. She looked for all things that would be concrete evidence of the creature. It was the encounter with the thing that led her to deal professionally in dreams. Something that resembled unreality that had lumbered into reality, and she had seen it (Byatt). Penny believed she could feel the creature and clear-cut that it chose to recede back into the forest. She also spent some time thinking of her own father and how when he died her mother became a recluse, seeing this reaction stir her emotionally. This is the reason she threw herself in to study and possibly never married.At the end of it all this women still do not converse or sit with one another when taking the same train home. They just share an acknowledgeable stare at the train station then go their separate ways. Primrose goes home and back to work but with a new confidence, she decides to tell the story of The Thing in the Forest she is no longer afraid. Penny goes back to the woods with the conviction that she needs this, for this creature to come to her because it has become the most real thing she can recognize. She was ready and waiting for it (Byatt).Despite how different these women are, they are one in the same. Penny and Primrose shared something awful that forever changed them in very similar ways. They also shared separate experiences in the same forest and came to the same realizations that the creature is real and it had affected their person emotionally and steered their paths throughout life. It is apparent to me that that these similarities the women share cannot be a coincidence but are a direct result of that horrifying day they saw The Thing in the Forest.

Legalizing gambling in Hawaii Essay

I say we should legalize gaming in hello. First of all, it would drastically increase hullos revenue and flow of tourism. Hawaii is already mainly dependent on tourism for incoming revenue. Some claim that crime might rise, moreover crime is there regardless of each laws, in any city, state, or country star might reside in. The state could utilize some of the vastly refined revenues to amplify law enforcement. This leave help combat any criminal activity. A good defense is a strong offense.Many say that gambling corrupts moral values, but it is ones own responsibility to control themselves, and pass on, or maybe arbitrate, knowledge to their children the importance of moral values. For example, many people blame television for the rottenness of their children and making them stupid. I blame the p arents for letting them watch those television shows. Parents should apply, even if by force, the rules to gambling. Dont gamble unless you know the odds are in your favor. Gambling o ccurs every single day, everywhere.The state should take advantage of this by legalizing gambling and taxing it. Do we really need to a greater extent criminals? No, we need more revenue. If we tax individuals that already illegally gamble, the state would have made millions in taxes. There already are poker, baccarat, black jack, and machine room houses. It is true gambling is not for everyone, especially stupid people. Why? you may ask. It is because stupid people make stupid choices. There should be a limit to how much gold an individual can gamble with per year, depending on their income and winnings.This is traceable by their taxes. For example, if one person makes $40,000 per year, and have no dependents, they are only allowed to gamble $10,000 to $15,000 for that fiscal year. This allow for ensure that the individuals life may still function. Crackheads and homeless people should not be able to gamble because this would most likely pep up them to pursue criminal activity for money to gamble with. The current illegal gambling houses that use computerized machines are full of these crackheads.It is because there are no rules in these current gambling facilities, that many have gambled away all their money, and live a criminal life in poverty. Why not start teensy and test the waters? The state should allow only a certain small district or street to open legal casinos. Even if the taxes are ridiculously high for these casinos, there is no doubt that entrepreneurs and businesspeople will open them, anyway. With the high stream of income from gambling and tourism taxes, the residents of Hawaii deserve a tax break.We have been struggling with high taxes for too long. If gambling were legalized in Hawaii, there is no doubt that alcohol would be cheaper. Prostitution would also increase, but a smart government would also take advantage of that.They should legalize prostitution and tax that as well Well, they should, under closed and controlled areas of cou rse. In conclusion, if Hawaii legalized gambling, it would greatly benefit our economy. The human species are best known for adapting to new things and new environments. We could adapt to this and have a great life.

American culture Essay

The humanistic discipline, more than(prenominal) than than opposite features of culture, provide avenues for the manner of imagination and personal vision. They offer a range of emotional and intellectual pleasures to consumers of charming nontextual matter and argon an primary(prenominal) flair in which a culture represents itself. There has long been a Western tradition distinguishing those humanities that appeal to the multitude, much(prenominal) as prevalent medicine, from those much(prenominal) as serious medicament orchestral musicnorm whollyy available to the elite of learning and taste.Popular finesse forms argon usually seen as more representative the Statesn products. In the coupled States in the recent past, there has been a blending of normal and elite contrivance forms, as all the dodges experienced a result of remarkable cross-fertilization. Because everyday cunning forms be so widely distributed, liberal arts of all physiques ask prosper ed. The arts in the joined States express the many an(prenominal) faces and the abundant original range of the American people. Especially since World war II, American innovations and the immense energy displayed in literature, terpsichore, and music have made American ethnical utilizations world famous.Arts in the linked States have become transnationally prominent in ways that argon unparalleled in history. American art forms during the second half of the twentieth coke a heavy(p) deal drawd the styles and qualities that the rest of the world emulated. At the end of the twentieth century, American art was considered agree in quality and vitality to art produced in the rest of the world. Throughout the twentieth century, American arts have enceinte to integrated red-hot visions and voices. lots of this revolutionary aesthetic energy came in the wake of Americas emergence as a superpower afterwards World War II. tho it was too due to the growth of mod York City a s an important center for publishing and the arts, and the immigration of artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism in atomic number 63 before and during the war. An outpouring of talents also followed the civil rights and protest movements of the mid-sixties, as cultural discrimination against blacks, women, and other groups diminished. American arts extend in many places and receive support from clandestine foundations, large corporations, local governments, federal agencies, museums, galleries, and individuals.What is considered worthy of support often depends on definitions of quality and of what constitutes art. This is a tricky subject when the fashionable arts are more and more incorporated into the domain of the fine arts and new forms much(prenominal)(prenominal) as performance art and conceptual art appear. As a result, defining what is art affects what students are taught more or less past traditions (for example, Native American tent keyst mavenings, oral tradi tions, and slave narratives) and what is produced in the future.While some practitioners, such as studio artists, are more vulnerable to these definitions because they depend on financial support to exercise their talents, others, such as poets and photographers, are less promptly constrained. Artists operate in a world where those who theorize and critique their work have taken on an increasingly important role. Audiences are influenced by a variety of intermediariescritics, the schools, foundations that offer grants, the matter Endowment for the Arts, head owners, publishers, and theater producers.In some areas, such as the performing arts, popular audiences may ultimately define success. In other arts, such as painting and sculpture, success is far more dependent on critics and a few, often wealthy, art collectors. Writers depend on publishers and on the public for their success. contrasted their predecessors, who relied on formal criteria and appealed to aesthetic judgments, critics at the end of the twentieth century leaned more toward popular tastes, taking into account groups antecedently ignored and valuing the merger of popular and elite forms.These critics often relied less on aesthetic judgments than on accessible measures and were eager to place artistic productions in the linguistic context of the time and social conditions in which they were gaind. Whereas anterior critics assay to create an American tradition of high art, later critics apply art as a center to give power and approval to nonelite groups who were previously non considered worthy of including in the nations artistic heritage. Not so long ago, culture and the arts were assumed to be an unalterable heritagethe accumulated wisdom and highest forms of achievement that were naturalised in the past.In the 20th century generally, and certainly since World War II, artists have been boldly destroying older traditions in sculpture, painting, dance, music, and literature. The ar ts have falsifyd rapidly, with one movement replacing another in quick succession. a) Visual arts. The visual arts have traditionally include forms of expression that appeal to the eyes by dint of painted surfaces, and to the sense of space through carved or molded materials. In the 19th century, photographs were added to the paintings, drawings, and sculpture that make up the visual arts.The visual arts were further augmented in the 20th century by the addition of other materials, such as found objects. These changes were come with by a profound alteration in tastes, as earlier emphasis on realistic image of people, objects, and landscapes made way for a greater range of imaginative forms. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American art was considered inferior to European art. contempt noted American painters such as Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and John Marin, American visual arts barely had an international presence.American art began to flourish d uring the Great Depression of the thirties as New Deal government programs provided support to artists along with other sectors of the population. Artists connected with for each one other and developed a sense of common purpose through programs of the Public Works Administration, such as the Federal Art Project, as headspring as programs sponsored by the exchequer Department. Most of the art of the period, including painting, picture taking, and mural work, think on the plight of the American people during the depression, and virtually artists painted real people in demanding circumstances.Artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Ben Shahn show the suffering of routine people through their representations of struggling farmers and workers. While artists such as Benton and Grant Wood focuse on rural life, many painters of the 1930s and 1940s depicted the multicultural life of the American city. Jacob Lawrence, for example, re-created the history and lives of African Americans. Other artists, such as Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, tried to use human figures to picture emotional states such as loneliness and despair. Abstract Expressionism.Shortly after World War II, American art began to garner worldwide precaution and admiration. This change was due to the innovative fervor of abstract expressionism in the fifties and to subsequent ripe art movements and artists. The abstract expressionists of the mid-20th century broke from the realist and figurative tradition get dressed in the 1930s. They emphasized their connection to international artistic visions rather than the particularities of people and place, and most abstract expressionists did not paint human figures (although artist Willem de Kooning did portrayals of women).Color, shape, and movement henpecked the canvases of abstract expressionists. Some artists broke with the Western art tradition by adopting innovative painting stylesduring the 1950s capital of Mississippi Pollock painted by go down paint on canvases without the use of brushes, duration the paintings of Mark Rothko often consisted of large patches of color that seem to vibrate. Abstract expressionists tangle alienated from their surrounding culture and apply art to scrap societys conventions. The work of each artist was quite individual and distinctive, but all the artists identified with the radicalism of artistic creativity.The artists were eager to challenge conventions and limits on expression in order to redefine the nature of art. Their radicalism came from liberating themselves from the confining artistic traditions of the past. The most notable occupation took place in New York City, which became one of the worlds most important art centers during the second half of the 20th century. The radical fervor and brightness of the abstract expressionists, their frequent association with each other in New York Citys Greenwich Village, and the support of a group of gallery owners and dealers turned th em into an artistic movement.Also known as the New York School, the participants included Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Arshile Gorky, in addition to Rothko and Pollock. The members of the New York School came from diverse backgrounds such as the American Midwest and Northwest, Armenia, and Russia, manner of speaking an international flavor to the group and its artistic visions. They hoped to appeal to art audiences everywhere, regardless of culture, and they felt connected to the radical innovations introduced earlier in the 20th century by European artists such as Pablo Picasso and wave Duchamp.Some of the artistsHans Hofmann, Gorky, Rothko, and de Kooningwere not born in the United States, but all the artists saw themselves as part of an international creative movement and an aesthetic rebellion. As artists felt released from the boundaries and conventions of the past and free to emphasize expressiveness and innovation, the abstract expressionists gave wa y to other innovative styles in American art. root system in the 1930s Joseph Cornell created hundreds of boxed assemblages, usually from found objects, with each based on a single theme to create a mood of considerateness and sometimes of reverence.Cornells boxes exemplify the modern fascination with individual vision, art that breaks down boundaries between forms such as painting and sculpture, and the use of everyday objects toward a new end. Other artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, have disparate objects to create large, collage-like sculptures known as combines in the 1950s. Jasper Johns, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, recreated countless familiar objects, most unforgettably the American flag. The most prominent American artistic style to follow abstract expressionism was the pop art movement that began in the 1950s.Pop art attempted to connect traditional art and popular culture by using images from mass culture. To shake viewers out of their preconceived notion s about art, sculptor Claes Oldenburg used everyday objects such as pillows and beds to create witty, soft sculptures. Roy Lichtenstein took this a step further by elevating the techniques of commercial art, notably cartooning, into fine art worthy of galleries and museums. Lichtensteins large, blown-up cartoons fill the surface of his canvases with granular black dots and question the existence of a distinct realm of high art.These artists tried to make their audiences see public objects in a refreshing new way, thereby breaking down the conventions that formerly defined what was worthy of artistic representation. Probably the best-known pop artist, and a leader in the movement, was Andy Warhol, whose images of a Campbells soup can and of the actress Marilyn Monroe explicitly eroded the boundaries between the art world and mass culture. Warhol also cultivated his perspective as a celebrity. He worked in film as a director and producer to break down the boundaries between traditi onal and popular art. hostile the abstract expressionists, whose conceptual plant were often difficult to understand, Andy Warhols pictures, and his own face, were instantly recognizable. Conceptual art, as it came to be known in the mid-sixties, like its predecessors, seek to break free of traditional artistic associations. In conceptual art, as practiced by Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth, concept takes precedent over actual object, by stimulating thought rather than following an art tradition based on conventional standards of peach tree and artisanship.Modern artists changed the meaning of traditional visual arts and brought a new imaginative dimension to ordinary experience. Art was no longer viewed as separate and distinct, housed in museums as part of a historical inheritance, but as a continuous creative process. This emphasis on constant change, as well as on the ordinary and mundane, reflected a distinctly American democratizing perspective. Viewing art in this way remov ed the emphasis from technique and polished performance, and many modern artworks and experiences became more about expressing ideas than about perfecting unblemished products. Photography.Photography is probably the most democratic modern art form because it can be, and is, practiced by most Americans. Since 1888, when George Eastman developed the Kodak camera that allowed anyone to take pictures, photography has struggled to be recognized as a fine art form. In the early part of the 20th century, photographer, editor, and artistic impresario Alfred Stieglitz established 291, a gallery in New York City, with fellow photographer Edward Steichen, to suit the works of photographers and painters. They also produce a magazine called Camera Work to extend awareness about photographic art.In the United States, photographic art had to compete with the widely available commercial photography in news and fashion magazines. By the 1950s the tradition of photojournalism, which presented ne ws stories primarily with photographs, had produced many neat works. In 1955 Steichen, who was director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, called attention to this work in an exhibition called The Family of Man. Throughout the 20th century, most professional photographers earned their living as portraitists or photojournalists, not as artists.One of the most important exceptions was Ansel Adams, who took majestic photographs of the Western American landscape. Adams used his art to stimulate social awareness and to support the conservation cause of the Sierra Club. He helped found the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940, and six years later helped establish the photography department at the California School of first-rate Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute). He also held annual photography workshops at Yosemite National Park from 1955 to 1981 and wrote a series of influential books on photographic technique.Adamss elegant landscape photography was wholly one small stream in a growing current of interest in photography as an art form. Early in the 20th century, teacher-turned-photographer Lewis Hine established a documentary tradition in photography by capturing actual people, places, and events. Hine photographed urban conditions and workers, including baby laborers. Along with their artistic value, the photographs often implicitly called for social reform. In the 1930s and 1940s, photographers joined with other depression-era artists supported by the federal government to create a hotographic record of rural America. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein, among others, produced unforgettable and widely reproduced portraits of rural poverty and American distress during the Great Depression and during the dust storms of the period. In 1959, after touring the United States for two years, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank published The Americans, one of the landmarks of docume ntary photography. His photographs of everyday life in America introduced viewers to a depressing, and often depressed, America that existed in the midst of prosperity and world power.Photographers keep to search for new photographic viewpoints. This search was perhaps most disturbingly corporal in the work of Diane Arbus. Her photos of psychological patients and her surreal depictions of Americans altered the viewers relationship to the photograph. Arbus emphasized artistic alienation and forced viewers to stare at images that often made them uncomfortable, thusly changing the meaning of the ordinary veracity that photographs are meant to capture. American photography continues to flourish.The many variants of art photography and socially conscious documentary photography are widely available in galleries, books, and magazines. A host of other visual arts thrive, although they are far less connected to traditional fine arts than photography. Decorative arts include, but are no t contain to, art glass, furniture, jewelry, pottery, metalwork, and quilts. Often exhibited in craft galleries and studios, these decorative arts rely on ideals of beauty in shape and color as well as an appreciation of well-executed crafts. Some of these forms are also developed commercially.The decorative arts provide a wide range of opportunity for creative expression and have become a means for Americans to actively participate in art and to purchase art for their homes that is more affordable than works produced by many contemporary fine artists. 4. Performing arts As in other cultural spheres, the performing arts in the United States in the 20th century increasingly blended traditional and popular art forms. The continental performing artsmusic, opera, dance, and theaterwere not a widespread feature of American culture in the first half of the 20th century.These arts were generally imported from or strongly influenced by Europe and were mainly appreciated by the wealthy and well educated. Traditional art usually referred to authorised forms in ballet and opera, orchestral or bedroom music, and serious drama. The distinctions between traditional music and popular music were firmly drawn in most areas. During the 20th century, the American performing arts began to incorporate wider groups of people. The African American community produced great musicians who became widely known around the country.Jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday spread their sounds to black and gabardine audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, the swing music of Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller adapted sleep with to make a unique American music that was popular around the country. The American performing arts also blended Latin American influences beginning in the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940, Latin American dances, such as the tango from Argentina and the rumba from Cuba, were introduced into the United States.In the 1940s a fusion of Latin and jazz elements was stimulated first by the Afro-Cuban mambo and later on by the Brazilian bossa nova. Throughout the 20th century, driving Greco-Roman institutions in the United States attracted international talent. Noted Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine established the short-lived American Ballet come with in the 1930s later he founded the partnership that in the 1940s would become the New York City Ballet. The American Ballet Theatre, also established during the 1940s, brought in non-American dancers as well.By the 1970s this company had attracted Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, an internationally acclaimed dancer who served as the companys artistic director during the 1980s. In classical music, influential Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who composed symphonies using innovative melodious styles, moved to the United States in 1939. German-born pianist, composer, and manager Andre Previn, who started out as a jazz pianist in the 1940s, went on to conduct a number of distinguished American symphony orchestras.Another Soviet, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in working capital, D. C. , in 1977. Some of the most innovative artists in the first half of the 20th century successfully incorporated new forms into classical traditions. Composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and dancer Isadora Duncan were notable examples. Gershwin combined jazz and spiritual music with classical in popular works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935).Copland developed a unique style that was influenced by jazz and American folk music. Early in the century, Duncan redefined dance along more expressive and free-form lines. Some artists in music and dance, such as composer John detain and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, were even more observational. During the 1930s Cage worked with electronically produced sounds and sounds made with everyday objects such as pots and pans. He even invented a new kind of piano.During the late 1930s, avant-garde choreographer Cunningham began to collaborate with Cage on a number of projects. Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most popular, American innovation was the Broadway melodic, which also became a delineation staple. Beginning in the 1920s, the Broadway musical combined music, dance, and dramatic performance in ways that surpassed the older vaudeville shows and musical revues but without being as multiplex as European grand opera.By the 1960s, this American musical tradition was well established and had produced extraordinary works by important musicians and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein II. These productions required an immense effort to coordinate music, drama, and dance. Because of this, the musical became the incubator of an American modern dance t radition that produced some of Americas greatest choreographers, among them Jerome Robbins, Gene Kelly, and Bob Fosse.In the 1940s and 1950s the American musical tradition was so dynamic that it attracted outstanding classically trained musicians such as Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York that became an instant classic in 1957. The following year, Bernstein became the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He was an international sensation who traveled the world as an ambassador of the American style of conducting.He brought the art of classical music to the public, especially through his Young Peoples Concerts, television shows that were seen around the world. Bernstein used the many facets of the musical tradition as a force for change in the music world and as a way of bringing attention to American innovation. In many ways, Bernstein embo died a transformation of American music that began in the 1960s. The changes that took place during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from a significant increase in funding for the arts and their change magnitude availability to larger audiences.New York City, the American center for art performances, experienced an artistic explosion in the 1960s and 1970s. Experimental off-Broadway theaters opened, new ballet companies were established that often emphasized modern forms or blended modern with classical (Martha Graham was an especially important influence), and an experimental music scene developed that included composers such as Philip Glass and performance groups such as the Guarneri String Quartet. Dramatic innovation also continue to expand with the works of playwrights such as Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and David Mamet.As the variety of performances expanded, so did the serious crossover voter between traditional and popular music forms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an expand ed repertoire of traditional arts was being conveyed to new audiences. Popular music and jazz could be heard in formal settings such as Carnegie Hall, which had once been restricted to classical music, while the Brooklyn Academy of Music became a venue for experimental music, exotic and ethnic dance presentations, and traditional productions of grand opera. groundbreaking producer Joseph Papp had been staging Shakespeare in key Park since the 1950s.Boston conductor Arthur Fiedler was playing a mixed repertoire of classical and popular favorites to large audiences, often outdoors, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. By the mid-1970s the United States had some(prenominal) world-class symphony orchestras, including those in Chicago New York Cleveland, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Even grand opera was affected. Once a alter taste that often required capacious knowledge, opera in the United States change magnitude in popularity as the roster of respected institutions grew to in clude companies in Seattle, Washington Houston, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico.American composers such as John Adams and Philip Glass began composing modern operas in a new minimalist style during the 1970s and 1980s. The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway musical, probably Americas most durable music form. Starting in the 1960s, jar music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair (1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such as Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996), which used African American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock version of the classic opera La Boheme.This modify of the musical opened the theater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows, as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music. Performances of all kinds have become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in transportation. In the blend in quarter of the 20th century, the number of major American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold.At the same time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United States, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance, has become a flourishing center for the performing arts. . Arts and letters The arts, more than other features of culture, provide avenues for the expression of imagination and personal vision. They of fer a range of emotional and intellectual pleasures to consumers of art and are an important way in which a culture represents itself. There has long been a Western tradition distinguishing those arts that appeal to the multitude, such as popular music, from thosesuch as classical orchestral musicnormally available to the elite of learning and taste. Popular art forms are usually seen as more representative American products.In the United States in the recent past, there has been a blending of popular and elite art forms, as all the arts experienced a period of remarkable cross-fertilization. Because popular art forms are so widely distributed, arts of all kinds have prospered. The arts in the United States express the many faces and the enormous creative range of the American people. Especially since World War II, American innovations and the immense energy displayed in literature, dance, and music have made American cultural works world famous.Arts in the United States have become internationally prominent in ways that are unparalleled in history. American art forms during the second half of the 20th century often defined the styles and qualities that the rest of the world emulated. At the end of the 20th century, American art was considered equal in quality and vitality to art produced in the rest of the world. Throughout the 20th century, American arts have grown to incorporate new visions and voices. Much of this new artistic energy came in the wake of Americas emergence as a superpower after World War II.But it was also due to the growth of New York City as an important center for publishing and the arts, and the immigration of artists and intellectuals fleeing fascism in Europe before and during the war. An outpouring of talent also followed the civil rights and protest movements of the 1960s, as cultural discrimination against blacks, women, and other groups diminished. American arts flourish in many places and receive support from private foundations, large corporations, local governments, federal agencies, museums, galleries, and individuals.What is considered worthy of support often depends on definitions of quality and of what constitutes art. This is a tricky subject when the popular arts are increasingly incorporated into the domain of the fine arts and new forms such as performance art and conceptual art appear. As a result, defining what is art affects what students are taught about past traditions (for example, Native American tent paintings, oral traditions, and slave narratives) and what is produced in the future.While some practitioners, such as studio artists, are more vulnerable to these definitions because they depend on financial support to exercise their talents, others, such as poets and photographers, are less immediately constrained. Artists operate in a world where those who theorize and critique their work have taken on an increasingly important role. Audiences are influenced by a variety of intermediariescr itics, the schools, foundations that offer grants, the National Endowment for the Arts, gallery owners, publishers, and theater producers.In some areas, such as the performing arts, popular audiences may ultimately define success. In other arts, such as painting and sculpture, success is far more dependent on critics and a few, often wealthy, art collectors. Writers depend on publishers and on the public for their success. Unlike their predecessors, who relied on formal criteria and appealed to aesthetic judgments, critics at the end of the 20th century leaned more toward popular tastes, taking into account groups previously ignored and valuing the merger of popular and elite forms. These critics ften relied less on aesthetic judgments than on social measures and were eager to place artistic productions in the context of the time and social conditions in which they were created. Whereas earlier critics attempted to create an American tradition of high art, later critics used art as a means to give power and approval to nonelite groups who were previously not considered worthy of including in the nations artistic heritage. Not so long ago, culture and the arts were assumed to be an unalterable inheritancethe accumulated wisdom and highest forms of achievement that were established in the past.In the 20th century generally, and certainly since World War II, artists have been boldly destroying older traditions in sculpture, painting, dance, music, and literature. The arts have changed rapidly, with one movement replacing another in quick succession. a) Visual arts. The visual arts have traditionally included forms of expression that appeal to the eyes through painted surfaces, and to the sense of space through carved or molded materials. In the 19th century, photographs were added to the paintings, drawings, and sculpture that make up the visual arts.The visual arts were further augmented in the 20th century by the addition of other materials, such as found objec ts. These changes were accompanied by a profound alteration in tastes, as earlier emphasis on realistic representation of people, objects, and landscapes made way for a greater range of imaginative forms. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, American art was considered inferior to European art. Despite noted American painters such as Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Mary Cassatt, and John Marin, American visual arts barely had an international presence.American art began to flourish during the Great Depression of the 1930s as New Deal government programs provided support to artists along with other sectors of the population. Artists connected with each other and developed a sense of common purpose through programs of the Public Works Administration, such as the Federal Art Project, as well as programs sponsored by the Treasury Department. Most of the art of the period, including painting, photography, and mural work, think on the plight of the American people during the depr ession, and most artists painted real people in difficult circumstances.Artists such as Thomas Hart Benton and Ben Shahn expressed the suffering of ordinary people through their representations of struggling farmers and workers. While artists such as Benton and Grant Wood focused on rural life, many painters of the 1930s and 1940s depicted the multicultural life of the American city. Jacob Lawrence, for example, re-created the history and lives of African Americans. Other artists, such as Andrew Wyeth and Edward Hopper, tried to use human figures to describe emotional states such as loneliness and despair. Abstract Expressionism.Shortly after World War II, American art began to garner worldwide attention and admiration. This change was due to the innovative fervor of abstract expressionism in the 1950s and to subsequent modern art movements and artists. The abstract expressionists of the mid-20th century broke from the realist and figurative tradition set in the 1930s. They emphasiz ed their connection to international artistic visions rather than the particularities of people and place, and most abstract expressionists did not paint human figures (although artist Willem de Kooning did portrayals of women).Color, shape, and movement dominated the canvases of abstract expressionists. Some artists broke with the Western art tradition by adopting innovative painting stylesduring the 1950s Jackson Pollock painted by dripping paint on canvases without the use of brushes, while the paintings of Mark Rothko often consisted of large patches of color that seem to vibrate. Abstract expressionists felt alienated from their surrounding culture and used art to challenge societys conventions. The work of each artist was quite individual and distinctive, but all the artists identified with the radicalism of artistic creativity.The artists were eager to challenge conventions and limits on expression in order to redefine the nature of art. Their radicalism came from liberating themselves from the confining artistic traditions of the past. The most notable activity took place in New York City, which became one of the worlds most important art centers during the second half of the 20th century. The radical fervor and inventiveness of the abstract expressionists, their frequent association with each other in New York Citys Greenwich Village, and the support of a group of gallery owners and dealers turned them into an artistic movement.Also known as the New York School, the participants included Barnett Newman, Robert Motherwell, Franz Kline, and Arshile Gorky, in addition to Rothko and Pollock. The members of the New York School came from diverse backgrounds such as the American Midwest and Northwest, Armenia, and Russia, bringing an international flavor to the group and its artistic visions. They hoped to appeal to art audiences everywhere, regardless of culture, and they felt connected to the radical innovations introduced earlier in the 20th century by Eu ropean artists such as Pablo Picasso and Marcel Duchamp.Some of the artistsHans Hofmann, Gorky, Rothko, and de Kooningwere not born in the United States, but all the artists saw themselves as part of an international creative movement and an aesthetic rebellion. As artists felt released from the boundaries and conventions of the past and free to emphasize expressiveness and innovation, the abstract expressionists gave way to other innovative styles in American art. Beginning in the 1930s Joseph Cornell created hundreds of boxed assemblages, usually from found objects, with each based on a single theme to create a mood of contemplation and sometimes of reverence.Cornells boxes exemplify the modern fascination with individual vision, art that breaks down boundaries between forms such as painting and sculpture, and the use of everyday objects toward a new end. Other artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, combined disparate objects to create large, collage-like sculptures known as combin es in the 1950s. Jasper Johns, a painter, sculptor, and printmaker, recreated countless familiar objects, most memorably the American flag. The most prominent American artistic style to follow abstract expressionism was the pop art movement that began in the 1950s.Pop art attempted to connect traditional art and popular culture by using images from mass culture. To shake viewers out of their preconceived notions about art, sculptor Claes Oldenburg used everyday objects such as pillows and beds to create witty, soft sculptures. Roy Lichtenstein took this a step further by elevating the techniques of commercial art, notably cartooning, into fine art worthy of galleries and museums. Lichtensteins large, blown-up cartoons fill the surface of his canvases with grainy black dots and question the existence of a distinct realm of high art.These artists tried to make their audiences see ordinary objects in a refreshing new way, thereby breaking down the conventions that formerly defined what was worthy of artistic representation. Probably the best-known pop artist, and a leader in the movement, was Andy Warhol, whose images of a Campbells soup can and of the actress Marilyn Monroe explicitly eroded the boundaries between the art world and mass culture. Warhol also cultivated his status as a celebrity. He worked in film as a director and producer to break down the boundaries between traditional and opular art. Unlike the abstract expressionists, whose conceptual works were often difficult to understand, Andy Warhols pictures, and his own face, were instantly recognizable. Conceptual art, as it came to be known in the 1960s, like its predecessors, sought to break free of traditional artistic associations. In conceptual art, as practiced by Sol LeWitt and Joseph Kosuth, concept takes precedent over actual object, by stimulating thought rather than following an art tradition based on conventional standards of beauty and artisanship.Modern artists changed the meaning of tra ditional visual arts and brought a new imaginative dimension to ordinary experience. Art was no longer viewed as separate and distinct, housed in museums as part of a historical inheritance, but as a continuous creative process. This emphasis on constant change, as well as on the ordinary and mundane, reflected a distinctly American democratizing perspective. Viewing art in this way removed the emphasis from technique and polished performance, and many modern artworks and experiences became more about expressing ideas than about perfecting finished products.Photography. Photography is probably the most democratic modern art form because it can be, and is, practiced by most Americans. Since 1888, when George Eastman developed the Kodak camera that allowed anyone to take pictures, photography has struggled to be recognized as a fine art form. In the early part of the 20th century, photographer, editor, and artistic impresario Alfred Stieglitz established 291, a gallery in New York Cit y, with fellow photographer Edward Steichen, to showcase the works of photographers and painters.They also published a magazine called Camera Work to increase awareness about photographic art. In the United States, photographic art had to compete with the widely available commercial photography in news and fashion magazines. By the 1950s the tradition of photojournalism, which presented news stories primarily with photographs, had produced many outstanding works. In 1955 Steichen, who was director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, called attention to this work in an exhibition called The Family of Man.Throughout the 20th century, most professional photographers earned their living as portraitists or photojournalists, not as artists. One of the most important exceptions was Ansel Adams, who took majestic photographs of the Western American landscape. Adams used his art to stimulate social awareness and to support the conservation cause of the Sierra Club. He hel ped found the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in 1940, and six years later helped establish the photography department at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco (now the San Francisco Art Institute).He also held annual photography workshops at Yosemite National Park from 1955 to 1981 and wrote a series of influential books on photographic technique. Adamss elegant landscape photography was only one small stream in a growing current of interest in photography as an art form. Early in the 20th century, teacher-turned-photographer Lewis Hine established a documentary tradition in photography by capturing actual people, places, and events. Hine photographed urban conditions and workers, including child laborers.Along with their artistic value, the photographs often implicitly called for social reform. In the 1930s and 1940s, photographers joined with other depression-era artists supported by the federal government to create a photographic record of rural America. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Arthur Rothstein, among others, produced memorable and widely reproduced portraits of rural poverty and American distress during the Great Depression and during the dust storms of the period.In 1959, after touring the United States for two years, Swiss-born photographer Robert Frank published The Americans, one of the landmarks of documentary photography. His photographs of everyday life in America introduced viewers to a depressing, and often depressed, America that existed in the midst of prosperity and world power. Photographers continued to search for new photographic viewpoints. This search was perhaps most disturbingly embodied in the work of Diane Arbus. Her photos of mental patients and her surreal depictions of Americans altered the viewers relationship to the photograph.Arbus emphasized artistic alienation and forced viewers to stare at images that often made them uncomfortable, thus changing the meaning of the ordinary reality th at photographs are meant to capture. American photography continues to flourish. The many variants of art photography and socially conscious documentary photography are widely available in galleries, books, and magazines. A host of other visual arts thrive, although they are far less connected to traditional fine arts than photography.Decorative arts include, but are not limited to, art glass, furniture, jewelry, pottery, metalwork, and quilts. Often exhibited in craft galleries and studios, these decorative arts rely on ideals of beauty in shape and color as well as an appreciation of well-executed crafts. Some of these forms are also developed commercially. The decorative arts provide a wide range of opportunity for creative expression and have become a means for Americans to actively participate in art and to purchase art for their homes that is more affordable than works produced by many contemporary fine artists. . Performing arts As in other cultural spheres, the performing ar ts in the United States in the 20th century increasingly blended traditional and popular art forms. The classical performing artsmusic, opera, dance, and theaterwere not a widespread feature of American culture in the first half of the 20th century. These arts were generally imported from or strongly influenced by Europe and were mainly appreciated by the wealthy and well educated. Traditional art usually referred to classical forms in ballet and opera, orchestral or chamber music, and serious drama.The distinctions between traditional music and popular music were firmly drawn in most areas. During the 20th century, the American performing arts began to incorporate wider groups of people. The African American community produced great musicians who became widely known around the country. Jazz and blues singers such as Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Billie Holiday spread their sounds to black and white audiences. In the 1930s and 1940s, the swing music of Benny Goo dman, Tommy Dorsey, and Glenn Miller adapted jazz to make a unique American music that was popular around the country.The American performing arts also blended Latin American influences beginning in the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1940, Latin American dances, such as the tango from Argentina and the rumba from Cuba, were introduced into the United States. In the 1940s a fusion of Latin and jazz elements was stimulated first by the Afro-Cuban mambo and later on by the Brazilian bossa nova. Throughout the 20th century, dynamic classical institutions in the United States attracted international talent.Noted Russian-born choreographer George Balanchine established the short-lived American Ballet Company in the 1930s later he founded the company that in the 1940s would become the New York City Ballet. The American Ballet Theatre, also established during the 1940s, brought in non-American dancers as well. By the 1970s this company had attracted Soviet defector Mikhail Baryshnikov, an i nternationally acclaimed dancer who served as the companys artistic director during the 1980s. In classical music, influential Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, who composed symphonies using innovative musical styles, moved to the United States in 1939.German-born pianist, composer, and conductor Andre Previn, who started out as a jazz pianist in the 1940s, went on to conduct a number of distinguished American symphony orchestras. Another Soviet, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, became conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D. C. , in 1977. Some of the most innovative artists in the first half of the 20th century successfully incorporated new forms into classical traditions. Composers George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, and dancer Isadora Duncan were notable examples.Gershwin combined jazz and spiritual music with classical in popular works such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). Copland developed a unique style that was influenced by j azz and American folk music. Early in the century, Duncan redefined dance along more expressive and free-form lines. Some artists in music and dance, such as composer John Cage and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, were even more experimental. During the 1930s Cage worked with electronically produced sounds and sounds made with everyday objects such as pots and pans.He even invented a new kind of piano. During the late 1930s, avant-garde choreographer Cunningham began to collaborate with Cage on a number of projects. Perhaps the greatest, and certainly the most popular, American innovation was the Broadway musical, which also became a movie staple. Beginning in the 1920s, the Broadway musical combined music, dance, and dramatic performance in ways that surpassed the older vaudeville shows and musical revues but without being as complex as European grand opera.By the 1960s, this American musical tradition was well established and had produced extraordinary works by important musicians and lyricists such as George and Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, Jerome Kern, and Oscar Hammerstein II. These productions required an immense effort to coordinate music, drama, and dance. Because of this, the musical became the incubator of an American modern dance tradition that produced some of Americas greatest choreographers, among them Jerome Robbins, Gene Kelly, and Bob Fosse.In the 1940s and 1950s the American musical tradition was so dynamic that it attracted outstanding classically trained musicians such as Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, an updated version of Romeo and Juliet set in New York that became an instant classic in 1957. The following year, Bernstein became the first American-born conductor to lead a major American orchestra, the New York Philharmonic. He was an international sensation who traveled the world as an ambassador of the American style of conducting.He brought the a rt of classical music to the public, especially through his Young Peoples Concerts, television shows that were seen around the world. Bernstein used the many facets of the musical tradition as a force for change in the music world and as a way of bringing attention to American innovation. In many ways, Bernstein embodied a transformation of American music that began in the 1960s. The changes that took place during the 1960s and 1970s resulted from a significant increase in funding for the arts and their increased availability to larger audiences.New York City, the American center for art performances, experienced an artistic explosion in the 1960s and 1970s. Experimental off-Broadway theaters opened, new ballet companies were established that often emphasized modern forms or blended modern with classical (Martha Graham was an especially important influence), and an experimental music scene developed that included composers such as Philip Glass and performance groups such as the Guar neri String Quartet. Dramatic innovation also continued to expand with the works of playwrights such as Edward Albee, Tony Kushner, and David Mamet.As the variety of performances expanded, so did the serious crossover between traditional and popular music forms. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, an expanded repertoire of traditional arts was being conveyed to new audiences. Popular music and jazz could be heard in formal settings such as Carnegie Hall, which had once been restricted to classical music, while the Brooklyn Academy of Music became a venue for experimental music, exotic and ethnic dance presentations, and traditional productions of grand opera. Innovative producer Joseph Papp had been staging Shakespeare in Central Park since the 1950s.Boston conductor Arthur Fiedler was playing a mixed repertoire of classical and popular favorites to large audiences, often outdoors, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. By the mid-1970s the United States had several world-class symphony orches tras, including those in Chicago New York Cleveland, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Even grand opera was affected. Once a specialized taste that often required extensive knowledge, opera in the United States increased in popularity as the roster of respected institutions grew to include companies in Seattle, Washington Houston, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico.American composers such as John Adams and Philip Glass began composing modern operas in a new minimalist style during the 1970s and 1980s. The crossover in tastes also influenced the Broadway musical, probably Americas most durable music form. Starting in the 1960s, rock music became an ingredient in musical productions such as Hair (1967). By the 1990s, it had become an even stronger presence in musicals such as Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk (1996), which used African American music and dance traditions, and Rent (1996) a modern, rock version of the classic opera La Boheme.This updating of the musical opened the the ater to new ethnic audiences who had not previously attended Broadway shows, as well as to young audiences who had been raised on rock music. Performances of all kinds have become more available across the country. This is due to both the sheer increase in the number of performance groups as well as to advances in transportation. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the number of major American symphonies doubled, the number of resident theaters increased fourfold, and the number of dance companies increased tenfold.At the same time, planes made it easier for artists to travel. Artists and companies regularly tour, and they expand the audiences for individual artists such as performance artist Laurie Anderson and opera singer Jessye Norman, for musical groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, and for dance troupes such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Full-scale theater productions and musicals first presented on Broadway now reach cities across the country. The United St ates, once a provincial outpost with a limited European tradition in performance, has become a flourishing center for the performing arts.

Hofstede Cultural Difference Critiques Essay

Arguably, Hofstedes work (1980, 1997) represents a pioneering mount of culture as a way of comparing international management manakins. First of all, preceding to offering any evaluations in regards to McSweeneys criticism (2002a/b), it is crucial to identify the nature of Hostedes work within the entire sphere of the culture approach itself.In contrast to the guarantors of the emic approach , whose main concepts tend to discard the equalization and standardization of dimensions in national cultures comparisons, the pillars of Hofstedes work, which belong to the etic approach , are base on 5 dimensions whereby national differences are then posterd. In other words, from the emic standpoint it is likewise arguable that the etic explore methodology, as aiming to identify equalities among national differences, would try throwing out the baby with the bath water .On the other hand, from the emic perspective, dividing the culture into a set of defined reachs stands as the alone way to actually alter queryers to compare cultures . Having briefly introduced the shortcomings related to both approaches, McSweeneys critiques can now be narrowed down to a specific scope, which is mainly encompassed with Hofstedes research methodology.Research ValidityIn light of the importance for any researches to provide clear definitions on the specific research concepts and key words, the first part of this hear entrust evolve on contextualizing the meaning of culture within Hofstedes work, thus, giving ground to McSweeneys relevant sources of criticism. Geert (1980) has defined culture as the incorporated programming of the mind distinguishing the members of one group or category of people from another. McSweeney essentially critiques Hofstedes adoption of nations as means of cultural comparisons, scorning the territoriality uniqueness of culture in primis.In regards to this issue, Hofstede in a second stage (2002 1356) acknowledges that nations are not the ideal eleme nts for studying cultures, yet this is the only way researchers could fork over access to comparable units. Predictably, thousands of other authors contri saveions in regards to the definition of culture would make this argument even more complex. For the sake of this analysis, emphasis would be given to the arguments in regards to the research methodology. Research Reliability Research Sample The first criticism which may arise is likely to involve the representativeness of Hofstedes research sample.In more details, he argues that 117,000 questionnaires for twain vistas, covering 66 countries would be enough to ensure the research reliability. From my point of flock, McSweeneys critiques outcome founded when analysing the sampling framework in more details. CountryNumber of Respondents for Each Country Belgium, France, Great Britain, Ger galore(postnominal), Japan and Sweden (6 countries)More than 1000 Chile, Columbia, Greece, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Israel, New Zealand, Pa kistan, Peru, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey (15 countries)Less than 200 Tab. 1 As it can be seen by the put over (Tab. ), in 15 countries the sample size is composed by less than 200 respondents, which results to be extremely small compared to other countries with over 1000 respondents. To touch this argument, McSweeney discusses about the narrowness of the population surveyed as respondents were all IBM employees, mainly involved with the marketing and sales departments. Hofstedes reply (2002), stating that this samples framework had only been used in order to isolate the national culture differences from both the organisational and occupational culture, seems however to give rise to other arguments.As McSweeneys (2002a 95-99) argues, respondents cultural framework is made up by three non-interacting and durable levels of culture (Tab. 2). At the first level, the assumptions which would free this model from any shortcomings would be that on that point is on ly one IBM culture and that there is overly a common worldwide occupational culture for each job (Hofstede 1980a 181). What are these assumptions based on? According to McSweeney (2002a 96), these assumptions are too crude and implausible to underpin Hofstedes emphatic empirical claims .Following the thread of his argument we come across a situation where assuming that an IBM employee, whether in a developed USA head office or a new opened branch office in Pakistan, will possess the same identical organizational and occupational culture does become hard to encompass. In response to this argument, Hofstede acknowledges that considerable differences exist at the organizational level (1991 93), yet it redefines the entire organizational culture as a mere set of shared perceptions of daily practices (1991 182-3), therefore distancing from the early-stage value-based definition.According to McSweeney (2002b), this is only a failed attempt to deliver a straightforward concept and defini tion of organizational culture. Back to Culture Hofstedes vision of culture is often linked to two different concepts, unique national tendency and central tendency, respectively. In the first case, as pointed out by McSweeney, the national uniformity which Hofstede claims to have found, results to have no valid grounds as it derives from a very specific micro-level (IBM).Secondly, in regards to the claimed second-rate tendency, the heterogeneity of questionnaires responses completely contradicts this conceptualization at the first place. As cited from Jacob (2005), if exceptions to the normal are as numerous as the rule itself to what finis could predictions based on that rule be reliable? In many countries, McSweeney argues, the typical IBM employee would at a high extent diverge from the general population.That is to say that an IBM employee in Taiwan would not necessarily reflect Taiwans population average individual, especially when we are talking about someone who holds a m anagerial position in a multinational firm. This concept brings us to another sentiment of McSweeneys criticism (2002a92), culture treated as a mere epiphenomenon, completely casual, as conceptualized by Hofstede, it would look like something which moves along the archives enduring, yet it is not subject to radical changes due to fluctuating social, economic and institutional trends (Tab. 3). Questionnaire and DimensionsArguably, the questionnaire itself also presents some limitations. Firstly aimed to investigate the employees morale at IBM, it also resulted to reflect some values that, for Hofstede, could have been used to unveil the national cultural differences myth. Citing one of his research questions, How long do you think you will continue working for this company? (1980 Appendix 1) , it is obviously clear there would be differences in whether this question is being asked in a country, say, the USA, with plentiful purpose vacancies, or in a country, say Thailand where at the time of the research the unemployment rate was comparatively high.Under these circumstances, it is extremely hard to assume that the respondents were not influenced by other social, political and institutional factors (See Tab. 3). Therefore, his researchs entire reliability could be easily questioned on this basis. Despite ensuring the confidentiality of respondents answers, employees foreknowledge of the end objective of the survey might have easily encouraged them to assume a more positive attitude in order to support their divisions reputation.Arguably, the responses analysed by Hofstede were situationally restricted (McSweeney, 2002a 107). In more details, the questions only reflected values related to the workplace, furthermore the surveys were exclusively directed within the workplace and were not tested in non-work place locations for both same respondents and others. In light of the first purpose of the questionnaire, it is spontaneous to raise a question in regards to the validity of the dimensions found by Hofstede.Could it be possible that a specialized study in cultural differences would have delineated different dimensions? In his response, Hofstede acknowledged that, although there may be some other dimensions every bit important for the structuring of a comparative cultural analysis, relative questions were simply not asked. McSweeney with reference to Triadis (1994) argues that bi-polar dimensions of national cultures should not be comprised of opposite poles (for example Individualism Collectivism), but depending on the situations they could coexist.Under these principles, the work of Schwartz (1992) appears to give a comparatively dynamic dimensions disposition. History and Research Validations In the last section of his book, Hofstede (1980 326- 331) includes some historical and coeval events which he states would validate his research findings. However, McSweeney (2002b) argues that these stories reveal nothing but justifications, le aving out the basics for an accurate confirmation.According to his analysis, Hosfstedes assertion, the more masculine a culture the more antagonistic are industrial transaction, is flawed as the trends for working days lost in industrial disputes , in both Spain and the UK, result to vary enormously over time. In other words, we could argue that these fluctuations are highly influenced by political, economic and institutional changes. In the case of industrial relations disputes in Spain, after the death of Spanish dictator Franco in 1975, the level of working days was subject to a huge increase.Hofstedes findings have also been validated by other studies, reflecting the same national cultural differences . This is one of the reasons why Hofstedes work has so far been used in many disciplines as pioneer of the cultural approach in the sphere of comparative international management. Under these circumstances, as Hofstede states (2002 p. 1358), it is just not all about trustfulness in his research, but it is the willingness of the society to accept his work as something which could be taken to a step further.In some cases, institutional factors, history, politics and prudence do provide better explanations in this field, yet as Hofstede would argue, the cultural perspective does have his validity as it offers a complete different view on values embedded by people which do have an influence on their daily lives. Conclusion Arguably, some of Hofstede research frameworks features, especially the ones related to his research methodology, do present various shortcomings. However, the overall importance of cultural approach for national differences should be seen as undeniable (Koen, 2005).Nevertheless, it is worth(predicate) pointing out that after all, the main argument merely evolves on Hofstedes claims to have uncovered the secrets of entire national cultures (1980b 44). Despite his book title narrowing the scope of its findings down to the work-place, Culture s Consequences International Differences in Work-Place Values, Hofstede, in many of his publications, seems to overestimate his findings. It is extremely important to acknowledge and appreciate the enormous component part that Hofstede has made to the entire societys understanding of international cultural differences.On the other hand, it is also crucial to stay away from the taken for given approach when coming across such a complex topic. As mentioned in the preface, etic and emic approach despite having a different vision on how to measure and analyse culture, they could still be seen as two complementarities which could be extensively used for a more thorough research. In addition, although admitting that limitations in research methodology do hamper the objectivity of findings, the etic approach still stands as the unique way to allow researchers to obtain comparable quantitative data.I do also appreciate the contributions made by McSweeney, whose criticisms have enabled me to adopt a more critical line of thought in analysing this interesting topic. At some extent we could assume that Hofstedes research is still a work in progress, eventually other advocates of the etic approach will take it to a more universal level, as some of other authors in this field have already done. I would like to conclude this essay with a quote from McSweeney (2002a 90), when he states that Hofstedes work could be dismissed as a misguided attempt to measure the unmeasurable .

Early Western Philosophy of Religion Essay

of the classical three laws of rational thinking. Claiming that every proposition is every true or non true, the first law summarily excludes the possibility of a middle-of-the-road alternative between two extremes. The second law states that it is not possible for something to be both true and not true at once and in the same contextual framework. The third law ascribes specific traits to everything. In other words, no two things are similar to each other (De Riemer, 2009).Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury and one of the torchbearers of the Gregorian mission, challenged the validity of the law of the excluded middle by training questions about the moment of death, when a person is alive and yet to die. Such a brief transition, according to him, does not con excogitate to the basic assumption give tongue to in the law of the excluded middle, for the dying instance falls in a temporal void where this law is nonfunctional (Stump & Kretzmann, 2001, p. 112). He, however, s upported the law of noncontradiction on the stand of having certitude of knowledge about a given over statement.Thus, he argued that If there is one sun, there are not two (Ibid, p. 163). In a way, Augustine endorsed inducive reasoning to substantiate his viewpoints on the foundational laws of thought. However, when it came to analyzing the law of identity, he discarded epistemological reasoning and embraced the core of Christian worldviews. The law of intrinsic essence of every universe was, according to his opinion, a hypothesis that is relative to the monistic identity of the highest form of Being, e. g. God Himself. In other words, it is possible to develop collective identity given that it finds a stake similar to Gods image (Ibid, p.87). Cosmological accounts of creation have been put forward by many of the early as well as modern thinkers. Various scientific theories have proved beyond doubt that our universe is not infinite. This proposition is tempting enough to regard what lies beyond the periphery. St. Thomas Aquinas, the medieval theologian and one of the seminal thinkers of his time, argued vociferously in favor of Gods existence on a cosmic level. His magnum opus Summa Theologiae is considered to be one of the treasure troves of philosophical treatises on creationism. Aquinas takes natural theology as the starting point of his argument.For nature, laws of existence are not rigid. It is possible for natural things to be born and destroyed, implying that everything is and is not at the same time. But it is truly impossible for anything to outlast its own expiration. What this means is that any form of existence is preceded by another form and that this chain continues backward till the creation of something that served independent of its own necessity for the sake of its succeeding creations. That something is nothing besides what we believe as God (Meister, 2009, p. 67). I, despite being an atheist, strongly endorse the line of reasoning Aqui nas used to prove Gods existence.He arrived at his intended position by means of teleological assumptions and subsequent cancellations if A is true, A cannot be not true. This method of double negation, I believe, holds the mystery story to success of his originative theological account. References De Reimer, H. T. (2009). Infallible Logic, A Visible and Automatic System of Reasoning. Charleston, South Carolina BiblioBazaar, LLC. Meister, C. (2009). Introducing Philosophy of Religion. New York Taylor & Francis. Stump, E. , & Kretzmann, N. (2001). The Cambridge companion to Augustine. New York Cambridge University Press.

Honors Program

Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, once said, Dont limitation yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve. Being a part of the Honors syllabus go out exit me to go above and beyond what I think I can accomplish and achieve. I take great interest in this curriculum and I believe that I can contribute many outstanding(a) qualities that I possess as well as receive a lot from it. The Honors Program grabbed my attention because its for academically outstanding students and I am that student.Throughout my years of high school, I remove taken Advanced Placement and Honors classes and have done very well in them. Being average is not okay for me, I want to do my best and reach my fullest potential in everything I do. I want being challenged mentally and that is exactly what the Honors Program will do for me. In the Honors Program I will be fitted to engage i n social and cultural seminars that I know I will thoroughly en triumph. I have been a part of Diversity nightclub where diverse cultures come together to shargon ideas, exchange food, and get to know more nearly each others culture, so I have an idea of what seminars are like.I am a very outgoing person and I love to meet and interact with new people so through these seminars and projects I will be able to do that. I would also like to get a broader perspective on the world and throughout the many different projects, I will gain that. I read about the Honors Program and what will be done throughout the four years and I suasion to myself that this is where I belong, I will fit right in. I want to accomplish many things that this program will allow me to and greatness is what I would like to aim for.The Honors Program at John Carroll University brings together one of the most gifted, diverse, and active groups of people not only on campus, but in the republic and I would like to be a part of that, something great. I am totally honored to be a part of this institution. If lucky enough to be appointed to the Honors Program, I will be able to bring my diverse background, my various leadership qualities, my love for extracurricular activities, and an overall point of view that will be able to express the opinions of many people.In high school, I have stayed involved in activities because I believe everything that you do is a reading experience and you can grow as a person from it. As a member of the varsity volleyball team, I learned how essential it is to be a team player. Working hard together, staying motivated, never giving up, and having a positive attitude really do bring about success. Being a part of Link Crew, where I helped the upcoming freshmans transition from middle school to high school more enjoyable, made me learn a lot about being a leader.I take pride in having underclassmen look up to me because I set a good typeface in and outside of the classroom. I am also a member of Relay for Life. I am a firm believer in standing up for what I believe in and taking action on something that I think is important. Each year my team donates a lot of property to support cancer patients. These skills that I have developed from some of the extra-curricular activities that I am involved in, I will bring into the Honors Program. For the most part, I recognise that students that are highly motivated academically are always interested in exploring new things.I am anxious to learn more about everything, especially about myself and finding even more activities that I may take interest in. The main goal that I wish to accomplish from the Honors Program is growth. I think that life is about achievement but it is also about learning and growth and developing qualities such as compassion, patience, perseverance, love and joy and so forth. So from the Honors Program I would like to stretch myself and achieve much more than I think I can becaus e nothing is insurmountable and there is always room for improvement in every aspect of life.Any organization or event that I commit myself to, I tie down myself to perform the tasks at hand at the fullest of my abilities and do not believe in doing anything half-heartedly. I consider myself a leader and enjoy taking responsibilities, fashioning decisions, and being held accountable for my actions. Furthermore, if appointed to the Honors Program, I will make it one of my top priorities and be able to dedicate lots of hours to its causes and goals.