Journal Search...Terrorism and Political Violence

I am looking for someone, anyone, who has access to the journal Terrorism and Political Violence. If you have access to this journal, please shoot me an email. I am working on a paper about animal rights and eco terrorists. I can access the hard copy of one of the articles, but would really like to get an e-copy for citations and find two other articles that aren't available in hard copy.

When I am done with the paper and it has been graded, I will post the full text here and the formatted paper with biblio in google docs. I should also note that in about a week, I will start posting some of my creative writing from this semester as well.

I imagine that as I am working on my world security term paper, I will also probably be posting about the ALF, the ELF and postmodern religioideology. The premise I am working from, is that postmodern philosophies, taken to an extreme, are virtually indistinguishable from religious extremism. I will provide evidence that indicates that the motivations of postmodern terrorists are no different from religious terrorists.

Neurobiology, Language and Culture: Help DuWayne Again

I am moving right along with my exploration of cognitive function, language and culture. I am really enjoying my quest into human consciousness, social development and their intersect with language. Honestly, I spend a lot of time wavering between reading (and listening to audiobooks) about human cognition, evolution, language and culture - and sitting in a daze, trying to pick apart tendrils of thoughts and ideas. It often reminds me very much of being really stoned, without the accompanying debilitation. Indeed, due to the stimulant therapy and the Welbutrin, I am actually able to pick at the minutiae and consider it in and out of context - assessing the implications.

Given another year or so, I should be able to develop a reasonable hypothesis. That is, a hypothesis that will drive the research I conduct early in my career. I have developed some interesting questions that I really hope will lead me to that question that will take up much of my time in a few years. That is the investigation into the questions, not the answers. While it is theoretically possible to answer these questions, doing so would be exceedingly difficult - if not impossible, given the tools we have to work with right now. And that assumes the questions themselves are correct.

One of the big questions - or series of questions I am rather keen on right now, is the correlation between language and culture, language and cognition and culture and cognition. I have been spending much of my spare time, such as it is, exploring the co-evolution of language and the brain. I have also read some interesting stuff about the early evolution of culture. And studying psychology and linguistics, I note correlations of culture, psychology, psychopathology and language on a regular basis. The exact nature of these correlations are the most fascinating questions I have ever had. There are not many questions I have found more pleasure in exploring.

At the moment I am exploring the evolution of language and the evolution of culture for one of my papers. I am also working on a paper that explores the impact of language and culture on the expression and treatment of mood disorders.

So here is the help that I need. I have most of the source material I need, but at least one of my sources for both papers needs to be an interaction with another person. Because of the nature of what I am writing about, I am really hoping to find some folks who have some background in some aspect or another, of the topics I am writing about. I am especially interested in talking to someone with experience in cross cultural mental health services. I do actually have some people I could potentially harass for the first paper (though I would love to meet new people), I am mostly looking for someone to talk to about the second.

When I am done with my papers and they have been graded, I will go ahead and post them. I have one that I should be able to post sometime this next week. These two papers however, aren't due for another four weeks, so I doubt I am going to be able to post them for at least that long.

Now for the rest of the Culture Questions...

I do want everyone to know that I appreciate all the responses I got to the last set of questions and rest assured, I am going to be using the responses I got - indeed, they are an integral part of this whole project. I would appreciate even those who did not respond to the first questions to respond to these. I will write a blog post about why I asked these and the others, as well as posting the paper that I am going to write, using the responses to these posts as something like the core of the paper.

I would also like to mention again - even if the response you have for any or all the questions has been given, please respond anyways. And again, if you are a professional (i.e. anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, please refrain from responding in comments. I would be happy to get your response via email, but I would prefer that your response not bias other responses.

First, I am going to define culture for the context of these questions - actually defining culture in a few ways that differ, but are not mutually exclusive. For the sake of simplicity, I am going to write them separately - though they will get melded some in the questions.

Culture = the human capacity to define experience through symbols (language) and communicate experiences using the symbols that define it.

Culture = an experience that is shared by the members of a particular language community, transmitted from one generation to another, through the use of symbols.

Culture = a common interest shared by several humans that includes language specific to that common interest. This common interest may transcend shared language communities, but includes symbols specific to that interest - though the specific symbols used may differ from language group to language group, the meaning of the symbols are consistent.

For the first question, let us assume you are part of a particular culture that transcends shared language communities - please consider this in the context of a culture that applies to you (i.e. SciFi, Comic books, a specific discipline of science, etc.).

Which would it be easier for you to share something interesting you have discovered about your interest;

Someone who is a member of your language community, but not your culture? or Someone who is part of a different language community, but is as strong a part of your culture as you are? Assume for the latter that you have no shared language and that even the symbols specific to your culture might be somewhat different.

Assume that you are trying to engage someone from a different language community than your own and that you do not share common language (aside from a couple of words that you think you might recognize). You have to communicate with this person, but all you have are each other. You are in your home, while this is taking place. How would you go about trying to communicate with this person?

Now you are trying to communicate with someone who is part of your language community. You want to explain a very common, integral aspect of your culture to this person, who is not a part of the culture you are trying to talk about. How would you go about this?

Finally, you are trying to communicate with someone who is part of your language community about a common, integral aspect of your culture, who while not being a part of that culture, does have a different shared culture with you. Would you explain it differently to them, than you did the last person? How?

To provide contextual examples for the last two questions - I am an exceedingly hard-core scifi/fantasy geek (though I have never been to a con). I am currently going through a series of books that I started in the nineties, but gave up on afraid the author was likely to die before he finished them (at that point, nine books in, following the same plot line, same characters). Now it is going to be completed, in spite of the author dying, so I have started over. This series (The Wheel of Time) has a rather peculiar system of magic - not even going to try to explain, suffice to say it is complicated and it is also entirely integral to the books and the cultures described in them.

For the first question, it would be like trying to explain this system of magic to someone who absolutely loathes fictional writing. For the second, it would be like trying to explain this to someone loves particularly well written crime fiction (i.e. Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard) like I do, but who has never really gotten into scifi/fantasy.

What is this thing we call Culture? *Updated* (Help DuWayne with Schoolwork)

I would just like to note that even if your definition has been mentioned, please respond anyways. I am interested in the numbers of people responding in a particular fashion.

I have way too damned many things to address, so it is fitting that I should add something more to that. This semester I am taking two classes that overtly delve into culture and another that addresses a specific subculture that looks to be intensely interesting.

I am going to provide my own response a little later, but I am rather curious how you might define culture. What do you think of, when someone mentions the word "culture?" How does "culture" differ from "society?" What is/are your culture/s?

Depending on the responses I garner (if I garner any), I will probably have some more questions. Indeed, I actually do have some specific questions to come that I am not asking now simply because I don't want to bias responses to the questions I have already asked.

I am asking these questions because I am hoping to use the responses as part of the foundation for one of my papers this semester. If you could help me out, I would really appreciate it. I would ask that those who have a background in anthropology or sociology refrain from responding in comments - I am not looking for professional definitions. What I am looking for is purely layperson responses. And if you have the urge to encourage others to respond to this post, I would be very appreciative. The more responses I can get, the better.