Will Technology Help Us Transcend the Human Condition? ​

​This publication is an invited contribution to the next issue of The Philosophers' Magazine, co-authored with Michael Hauskeller.
​Research Interests: 
Future Studies, Philosophy, Philosophy of Technology, Technology, Singularity, and Technological singularity

Limitless? There's a Pill for That: Filmic Representation as Equipment for Living

​In this chapter, I perform a rhetorical analysis that situates the film Limitless as a text to be read for dominant meanings of biotechnology and human enhancement. Utilizing Kenneth Burke's theory of literature as equipment for living, it is argued that Limitless symbolically equips viewers to confront their ambivalence and anxiety towards human enhancement by demonstrating how biotechnology, when properly engineered, creates a trajectory of transcendence. The chapter concludes by critiquing the cinematic embrace of the proactionary principle and questions the desirability of self-directed evolution.
Research Interests: 
Bioethics, Film Studies, Film Analysis, Literary Criticism, Critical Bioethics,  Transhumanism/Posthumanism and 
Film and Media Studies

Soma, Sema, Sacred: Prolegomena to an Ethics of Suffering​

​The following is a Bildungsroman, or a memoir essay of a coming of age, which begins to unravel midway through an undergraduate student’s life at Oxford University.  Familiar wisdom literature themes emerge in a contemporary context of universal suffering and deprivation, yet no respite from the very opposite of existence.  From this deprivation, human life and ethics emerge simply because there is no alternative, though there are important choices along the way.
​Research Interests:
Philosophy, Ethics, Theology, Death & Dying (Thanatology), Autoethnography, Medical Ethics and Existentialism

​Brij Mohan: person, pioneer, professor

​This publication is a triadic review of Dr. Brij Mohan. Unfortunately, this publication is only available online.

​The Resounding Sound of Cultural Resonance: Social Work Practice in the Hawaiian Context

​It is not uncommon to hear social work practitioners and educators speak of the concept of containment and creating space for client interactions in a culturally competent manner.  For the purpose of this paper, it is not our intention to do away with this existing framework but to suggest an additional layer of descriptive dimensionality to current scholarship.  What we put forward is cultural resonance, in the direct practice setting, which is necessarily built upon the utility of cultural competence and even the notion of container contained.  Though cultural resonance may be more difficult to quantify, what can be said is that there exists, at least in some direct practice experiences and to varying degrees, moments where both clients and social workers become aware that they are participating in or co-creating a meaningful exchange.  We would like to posit that during these moments of meaningful exchange resonance is at work.  We would also like to position this proposition amidst the complexity that exists while interacting with indigenous people groups, especially that of Native Hawaiian and Native Americans. 

Historically, Native Hawaiians and Native Americans share similar experiences of cruelty and cultural genocide. Attempts at cross-cultural connections in the social work context have often been unsuccessful due to a lack of sensitivity to the underlying cultural wounds that are embedded in the schemas of Native Hawaiians and Native Americans alike. It is important for social work professionals to be acutely aware of this history of oppression in practice with these vulnerable populations. Cultural resonance is a term that, although closely related to cultural competence, is not fully explored in social science literature. The concept of cultural resonance can be useful in social work practice with vulnerable populations, such as Native Hawaiians and Native Americans, and can bridge the cultural divide that often hinders the therapeutic relationship. In this paper, the historical and contemporary similarities between Native Hawaiians and Native Americans will be explored through literature review and qualitative interactions in the Hawaiian context. Further, the concept of cultural resonance will be defined and its usefulness considered in social work practice with the Native Hawaiian and Native American populations.

Effect of Time Constraints of Mathematics Test Performance of Undergraduate College Students

​For many students, the words “timed mathematics test” evoke a sense of dread or fear of impending failure. Studies examining the correlation between anxiety and performance on timed versus untimed tests, specifically mathematics and statistics tests, have shown that students often focus less on the test itself and more on how much time is left to complete the test (Onwuegbuzie & Seaman, 1995; Walen & Williams, 2002). In this preliminary study, it is hypothesized that stress, provoked by a timed testing condition, will decrease performance on mathematics tests. Participants include 42 college students enrolled in an experimental psychology course. The participants are split into 2 groups according to laboratory class section: a Constraint group (consisting of 15 females and 9 males) and a Relaxed group (consisting of 15 females and 3 males). Both groups were given a timed 57 problem mathematics addition test. The time constraints were 4 minutes for the Constraint and 12 minutes for the Relaxed. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) was administered after timed testing. The results of this study support the hypothesis that time constraints decrease performance on mathematics tests. This paper details the results of the pilot study and offers suggestions for future research.

Suicide and the Golden Gate Bridge

​In this paper, we examine the unique relationship between suicidality and the Golden Gate Bridge.  In order to better understand the thought-processes of those contemplating suicide, we include extant literature and interviews from “jumpers” who survived the 245-foot drop.  As unbelievable as it may sound, our empathy—a smile and a hello—may be the life-saving barrier that prevents a tragic loss of life.

Social Stigma and Cultural Identity Among Arab Americans

Since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, there has been a heightened sense of insecurity and vulnerability which has engendered negative stereotypes of the Arab American population. Subsequently, there has been an increased amount of stigma, or perceived stigma, experienced within the Arab American population in the United States.  In light of these developments, this research in progress attempts to examine the impacts of social stigma upon cultural identity among Arab Americans.

If It's Hysterical, Why Aren't Women Laughing? The Role of Gender in the Social Construction of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

For the past 25 years, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), a debilitating neuro-immune disease of unknown etiology, has largely been constructed as an illness that affects affluent, white females (Jason et al., 1999; Lindal, Stefansson, & Bergman, 2002; Reyes et al., 2003). Until the October 2010 release of Science’s earth-shattering study, which allegedly implicated an infectious gamma retrovirus as a causal agent in CFS pathogenesis, little traction was gained by researchers and patient advocates in this community (Lombardi et al., 2010). However, with the presumed discovery of xenotropic maurine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) in the circulating blood of 67% of CFS sufferers, the disease was quickly lionized as an “actual illness” and perhaps an epidemic.

Due to the post-XMRV re-conceptualization, this paper is an attempt to explore, through a feminist perspective, the complex role that gender plays in the construction of CFS. The overall purpose of this paper is to elucidate salient factors that contribute to a continual shaping and situating of CFS in a deprecatory context that limits the possibility of positive treatment outcomes for millions of afflicted women and men. To wit, as long as CFS is misunderstood to be psychogenic and not pathogenic, patients will continue to suffer in marginalized silence.

Excavating the Past, Choosing the Self: Applying Retrospective Sense-making to Wordsworth’s The Prelude

This paper is a re-examination of The Prelude, a popular culture artifact.  Based on the understanding that texts stand outside of time and are continuously open to new interpretations, I argue that Wordsworth’s The Prelude is more than poetical reverie.  The Prelude may be understood, through the application of retrospective sense-making, as a rational choosing, a conscious endeavor to construct a discursive identity.

Technology and the Tao